


Petting Teacher

by Pouxin



Category: Eagle of the Ninth Series - Rosemary Sutcliff, The Eagle | Eagle of the Ninth (2011)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-15
Updated: 2011-10-15
Packaged: 2017-10-24 17:32:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/266061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pouxin/pseuds/Pouxin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><span class="small"> Thanks to <a href="http://awarrington.livejournal.com/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://awarrington.livejournal.com/"><b>awarrington</b></a> for her lovely summary – I hate summarizing my own work! </span> Dr. Marcus Aquila is an American teaching history at a university in England.  There he meets Esca, a second year history student, and feels an immediate and overwhelming attraction - almost an obsession. But Esca's troubled past - in and out of foster care and a young offenders' home - has a strong influence on his attitudes, beliefs and behaviour, causing the path of their connection to be a very rocky one.  This is a story about two complex men who are more similar than the other realises and whose beliefs have created a set of self-limitations that each of them struggles to overcome in order to find happiness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_  
**Petting Teacher (1/4) | Marcus/Esca | NC-17**   
_   


**Title:** Petting Teacher  
 **Rating:** NC-17  
 **Pairing:** Marcus/Esca  
 **Summary:** Thanks to [](http://awarrington.livejournal.com/profile)[**awarrington**](http://awarrington.livejournal.com/) for her lovely summary – I hate summarizing my own work!  Dr. Marcus Aquila is an American teaching history at a university in England. There he meets Esca, a second year history student, and feels an immediate and overwhelming attraction - almost an obsession. But Esca's troubled past - in and out of foster care and a young offenders' home - has a strong influence on his attitudes, beliefs and behaviour, causing the path of their connection to be a very rocky one. This is a story about two complex men who are more similar than the other realises and whose beliefs have created a set of self-limitations that each of them struggles to overcome in order to find happiness.  
 **Word count:** 26k  
 **Warnings** : Explicit sex (well, in Part Three!); reference to suicide; reference to violence

 **Author’s note** : The story was written for [This prompt](http://the-eagle-kink.livejournal.com/2834.html?thread=3453202#t3453202) on the [](http://the-eagle-kink.livejournal.com/profile)[**the_eagle_kink**](http://the-eagle-kink.livejournal.com/)

Thanks to [](http://carolina-hope.livejournal.com/profile)[**carolina_hope**](http://carolina-hope.livejournal.com/) for her great prompt. Thanks SO much to [](http://awarrington.livejournal.com/profile)[**awarrington**](http://awarrington.livejournal.com/) for being my LJ mentor, for editing the story and for all her support. Thanks to [](http://ladytiferet.livejournal.com/profile)[**ladytiferet**](http://ladytiferet.livejournal.com/) for her stunning banner, and to [](http://poziomeczka.livejournal.com/profile)[**poziomeczka**](http://poziomeczka.livejournal.com/) for being such a fabulous ~~filthy~~ fairy godmother to the story as it progressed. And of course thanks to all the lovely, lovely members of the eagle fandom for their encouragement.

I have compiled a little playlist of music that I used to soundtrack the story in my head, because I am a bit nuts like that, and obssessed with mix CDs, which I will post on here as well. Hope y'all enjoy!

This is my first every LJ entry (and what a lovely way for it to lose its virginity!), so if I have failed at html then the fault is all mine. And I will cry.

_________________________

  
The moment he sees him it’s a jolt, like testing a battery with the tip of your tongue. Marcus feels it zip along the stretch of his nerves, tongue to throat, throat to chest, to clench low in his belly, lower. There is something so startling about the boy, something so new and strange, but at the same time, something so familiar. _I know you_ , thinks Marcus’ heart, his hands, his cock, _I know you in my bones. You_.  All at once comes the realization he can never have him. Not just because he’s a student, and Marcus is his lecturer, although he knows that well enough. That’s the last thing he needs, another scandal to his name, another Aquila academic covering himself in anti-glory. But also because the boy has the verve and swagger that always eluded Marcus, even at the same age; and more than that, he still has the bright box-freshness to his eyes, the artless long-limbed grace that left Marcus long ago. Sometimes he feels like he could be a thousand years old. His leg aches. His heart aches. In both those seconds, the knowing, the not having, he is surprised by how sharp the twist of disappointment is, slicing down the same line as the shock of recognition. _But didn’t you always know_ , he thinks, _didn’t you always know it would sting like this_. No, no. He didn’t. How could he know?

Marcus always likes to open up the second lecture of term with a debate. History’s alive kids! Or something like that. He knows a lot of other members of faculty think it’s weird, hopelessly impractical, too American for such an old fashioned British university, better suited to seminar sessions. But Marcus enjoys it, and what’s more, the students enjoy it. At least they seem to. To Marcus this is what history is really about, and he likes the metaphor of it, here in the lecture theatre, the play within a play. He likes the history of the idea of curved rows of seating round a central pit, like all the great historic centres of democracy, like the Roman senate. _Like an amphitheatre_. And, if he’s honest with himself, the darker, more brutish part of him enjoys throwing the students to the lions. How it works is this: two students go head to head, picked at random from the register, five minutes each. Then the next two. And so on. The winner of each contest gets 3% of his or her final mark; the loser: 0%. Sometimes students complain, and Marcus is tempted to penalize them an additional 3%. Cottia thinks he’s a sadist.

The lecture is well over halfway through before Marcus sees him. The last two opponents have cleared the centre of the hall, and Marcus announces the names and subject for the next bout. “Mr. MacCunoval, Mr. Placidus. This house believes that a Pyrrhic victory can still be a necessary one. Go.”

And then there he is. _Esca_.

From the minute he takes the floor, there is a quiet strength about him, as if everything is poised, coiled and ready to spring, sparking with energy. Something about him, the cool grey of his eyes, the haughty twist to his mouth, arrests Marcus’ attention from the start. And then he begins to speak.

It should be an indefensible position, arguing for victory at any cost, but the MacCunoval boy is romping away with it. It isn’t just the words he uses, although the arguments are undoubtedly clever, and well-wrought. It’s the way he uses his body, his eyes, the quick grace of his dancer’s hands, the slight quirk of his mouth that is not quite mockery, not quite a smile. Marcus finds himself mesmerized, his pen still above his notes page, his heart thudding strongly with delight, a broad grin breaking out across his face. And it’s not just him. For these past few minutes Esca has had the entire lecture hall eating out of the palm of his hand.

Placidus looks angry, the colour high in his cheeks, and his voice rising with every rebuttal. He knows he’s losing, and losing from a position of strength. “It doesn’t matter what you say,” he retorts hotly, his voice sharp and desperate, “sometimes not hurting people is ten thousand times more bloody important than being _right.”_ All at once it’s like a light goes out in Esca’s eyes. He shrugs, dips his head. Is silent. “See! Do you admit that you’re wrong?” Placidus rounds on him now, sensing an opening, one hand jabbing angrily forward towards Esca’s chest. Again, Esca just shrugs, his palms open. Only the leaping pulse in his neck reveals there is any emotion in him at all.

The other students grow restless. “Come on MacCunoval!” comes a voice from the upper end of the theatre, “Say something – it’s meant to be a debate, not a monologue.” Still Esca says nothing, although his eyes gleam again, and his cheeks flush. Placidus rocks back on his heels, pleased, but slightly bewildered, sensing he has managed to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, but not quite knowing how, as the growing rise of murmurs washes over him.

“Hey, hey, come on now, you lot,” Marcus shouts over the growing din, “if Mr. MacCunoval wishes to exercise his right to silent protest, he is more than entitled to do so.” He thinks Esca might look at him. Might be – what? – amused. Grateful? But he does not. “Win to Mr. Placidus,” Marcus announces reluctantly, to a mix of half-hearted applause and cat calls.

Marcus approaches Esca after the lecture. He is almost tempted to leave his cane propped up by the lectern, but immediately feels embarrassed by the vanity of the idea. Besides, the beginning of term is always stressful, and his leg has been bothering him more than usual, the deep muscle ache tightening like a vice and locking in.

“Hey.”

“Hey.” Esca is packing his books into his shoulder bag. He does not look up at Marcus.

“So, what was that about? Why did you stop the debate? You had him backed into a corner there.”

Now Esca looks up, quickly, his grey eyes cool and distant.

“Placidus was right,” he says, levelly. “Some costs are too high. Some things are more important that winning.”

All at once Marcus feels small, stupid. It’s been a long time since someone made him feel that way. There is something about Esca, about his assuredness, his directness, his…all Marcus can think of is _grace_ … that makes him feel blunt, and slow and ridiculous in comparison.

Another student from the class approaches them, his hair styled in a long Mohawk. “Come on Esca,” he says huskily, with an insouciant half-smirk in Marcus’ direction, “we’ll be late.” And he places his hand lightly, firmly, on Esca’s ass, in an unmistakable mark of ownership.

Marcus feels the touch like a thump to his solar plexus. The boy is slim, French-sounding, dark eyed: everything Marcus isn’t. Looking at him, Marcus feels hopelessly parochial. Everything about him seems too big, too basic, too obvious. Once again Marcus wishes he’d left his cane at the front of the hall. In light of the boy’s easy loucheness, the cane seems a clear affectation. He can’t carry off debonair. At best he could carry off jock, and – he grimaces down at his leg – he can’t even do that anymore.

Esca seems oblivious to his discomfort, shouldering his bag and moving away between the rows of seats. He pauses, and looks briefly over his shoulder. “Thanks.” Then he is gone, leaving Marcus feeling curiously sad, like he’s just lost something he never even knew he had.

From then on it’s hard to keep his eyes off Esca. In every lecture Marcus concentrates on keeping his gaze neutral, detached, sweeping across the wide hall and back, never resting too long on anyone in particular. But he feels Esca like the pulsing core of a magnet, drawing him, pulling him in. In seminar groups it’s even worse. To be close to him, to be… The angles of his wide, fluting cheekbones, the greyblue of his eyes, like bright skies after storm clouds. The dark indigo inking of the tattoo that is sometimes visible under the sleeve of his t-shirt, a marking that Marcus longs to press his tongue against, to trace with tender, brutish fingertips, to learn by heart.

Esca is quiet in class, although when he does say something it is always quick, keen, insightful. He looks solemn, sad, sometimes even angry. But Marcus sees him in the hallways sometimes, in the atrium, in the quad, with his friends, and he looks relaxed, happy – mischievous even. Sometimes with the French boy, Liathan. Sometimes laughing. His head thrown back, his mouth open. Always with those devastating eyes, the messy hair of a boy who’s been up all night fucking, that incredible ass. Esca.

It takes Marcus a while to notice that he has never actually seen any of Esca’s written work. His second year classes are big, and a lot of the marking gets done by PhD students or junior members of faculty. But then he gets given a review report by the Department secretary, and there it is. A series of late/missing by all of Esca’s assignments, including the 5,000 word essay Marcus has set for that term, on which 30% of the years’ grade is based. So Marcus does what he always does with a student in this situation, and sends Esca a polite, professional email requesting he hand the paper in to him personally, with immediate effect. Esca does not respond.

Marcus is packing up after a lecture when Esca approaches him. There are a few students left in the hall, chatting and laughing, inching their way out between the rows. At first Marcus doesn’t see him, but then he feels him like a hot, bright bolt to his stomach.

“Doctor Aquila?” Esca puts his hand briefly on the sleeve of his jacket, and all at once Marcus feels like his body has been turned inside out, with the nerves on the outside, feeling.

“Mr. MacCunoval.” Marcus tries to keep his voice light, steady.

“I need an extension,” Esca says directly.

“Esca – you’ve already had ‘an extension’. Your essay is 4 days late. If I don’t receive it by the end of the day, you will lose 20% of the mark.”

“I need an extension,” Esca repeats. He looks outwardly relaxed, although something shifts deep within the storm of his eyes.

“I’m afraid I don’t give extensions,” Marcus replies, sounding angrier than he is. He just feels so full of…feeling. He wants to know Esca. He wants to understand him. Instead he turns and sits down on the chair behind the desk, sorting through the remaining lecture handouts. He expects Esca to leave, the hall is empty now, and even Marcus can see how pissy his last words sounded. But he doesn’t.

“I could make it worth your while,” Esca says, and his voice is different now, lazier, deeper. The tone is unmistakable, and Marcus feels a flurry of gooseflesh along the length of his arms. The gravel whisper of a lover. _Now. Darling._ _Yes_.

“I beg your pardon?” He looks up from the lecture notes, meeting Esca’s gaze, aiming for a tone of disbelief, of moral indignation.

“I’ve seen the way you look at me in lectures,” Esca drawls. He braces his hands against Marcus’ desk, making his arms flex and shift beneath his t-shirt, his tattoo shimmy as if it was a real, living thing on his smooth pale skin. “Come on. Wouldn’t you like me to…” and here he leans forward and snakes his hips to the side, making that fabulous ass press up against the corner of the desk. “You know…over your desk. In the lecture hall. Just like you’ve been thinking.” He meets Marcus’ eyes with his hot grey ones, and slowly, deliberately licks his lips. “I can tell you, I’m even better than you’ve been thinking.”

Marcus feels astonishment and arousal bubble up inside him, hot, twin streams. Esca’s lips. Esca’s ass. Oh God, Esca’s lips.

“I… I….” Marcus begins, desperately.

Esca treats him to a delightfully wicked grin, instantly changing from seductive to playful.

“Would you like me to show you?” He places one hand idly on Marcus’, the rough pad of his thumb finding the tender underside of Marcus’ wrist.

Marcus’ cock rears in his pants in response. He wonders if Esca can feel the wild hammering of his heart, if he knows how often he has fantasized about this, just this. “No,” Marcus’ voice is gratifyingly firm, steady. He snatches his hand away. “ _Esca_. I am your lecturer. I am a member of staff at this university. I don’t give extensions and neither do I sleep with students. For business or pleasure.”

“Hmmm, is that so?” Esca looks amused. He moves round the desk to stand closer to Marcus, making his body sing with desire to touch him, to be pressed against him.

“It certainly is.” Marcus stands up, takes a step backward. “Now I think you should leave before you give me no option but to report this… _incident_ … to the Dean.”

Esca’s face hardens, the amusement, the animation, the… _desire?_ …did Marcus imagine that? draining from it. “Worth a shot,” he says. “Besides…I figured you of all people wouldn’t mind stretching the rules. You know, with your dad and all. I thought you might not mind being…free and easy with the facts. But then I suppose it’s one rule for the rich and one rule for everyone else.”

Marcus feels himself go rigid with anger. “That’s enough MacCunoval,” he says, his voice flinty. “Get out. Just get out.”

For a brief second Esca looks anxious, scared even, like he knows he’s gone too far. He opens his mouth as if to say something else, but then turns, and starts to stride quickly across the empty, cavernous hall towards the door.

“Wait!” Marcus barks. Esca stops, and his shoulders tense, his fists clenching and unclenching. He turns, slowly. “One week,” Marcus says, coldly. “You get a one week extension. And I’m telling you, when that report lands on my desk, it better be brilliant. It better be the best fucking essay that I read this term, or you’re failing this class.”

Esca nods once, abruptly. “Right. Thanks.”

He leaves.

Marcus’ father. Professor of History, Head of Department at Columbia University, respected by his peers, admired by his students. Some days Marcus barely thinks of him. Other days he feels his father’s presence all around him, so urgent and tangible that he half expects to turn around and see him watching him with his same old coolly critical gaze. It happened in Marcus’ first year at Columbia, a period in his life he now feels so detached from, it’s like it happened to someone else, someone in a book he read once and can hardly remember. A book about a young man, strong and hopeful and full of promise. A stranger. Days spent drinking coffee, walking through the impossibly beautiful New York autumn, the air fresh and clean and cool, debating the finer points of early American history with clever girls and pretty boys; evenings spent in practice or at the gym, the easy flowing power of his limbs, the joy he had felt in the luxuriant strength of his own body; nights spent in bars, falling into bed with sloe eyed boys who would sigh against his neck and dig their thumbs tight into the muscles of his back. None of these things seem real to him, could have really happened to him, to the him he is now.

He was there on a 50% scholarship as the son of a member of faculty. He probably could have tried for a football scholarship on his own merit, but his father had never really approved of the amount of time he spent training at school, and encouraged him to spend his time at university on his studies instead of the sports field. In a rare act of defiance Marcus had played for the Lions anyway, careful to make sure his History grades were always in the upper half of the class lest his father find some way to make him stop. Although he was reading history, an Aquila family tradition, thankfully he didn’t have to attend any of his father’s lectures or seminar groups, as he was on sabbatical researching for his book on Roman military history in Britain. _The_ book. The book that changed everything.

Marcus can still remember the fanfare when it came out, the glowing reviews, the accolades heaped upon it by the Columbia staff, by other noted historians. And then the awarding of the prestigious Wolfson History prize; sitting sweatily in his too-tight suit for the awards ceremony, feeling the same mix of pride and anxiety at his own failings he always felt around his dad. His father accepted the praise with the easy manner of someone who has never expected anything less for themselves. For their son.

It hadn’t seemed much at first – there had been an article in _Britannia_ questioning the basis of some of the evidence Prof. Aquila had presented for the destruction of the Legio IX Hispana at the hands of Caledonian tribes. Then came a special symposium in _The Journal of Roman Studies_ ; then the investigation by Columbia itself and an outside panel of scholars it appointed. Marcus can still see the damning words of the final report produced by the committee: ‘Aquila’s arguments are based on wholesale misuse of evidence, and, in some cases, no evidence at all.’

The results were swift and severe. His father’s publishers dropped the book, and the Wolfson committee withdrew the prize, the first time it had ever retracted it in the 35 year history of the award. Prof. Aquila lost his tenured job at Columbia, and became an academic untouchable, Marcus lost his 50% fee reduction as a child of a member of faculty. He remembers his father’s face, lean and freshly lined, his eyes dark and veiled. “It doesn’t matter, Marcus, I’ll find a way to keep you there, I can find the money.” But how could he stay, with everyone knowing who he was, who his father was, what he had done? How could he represent his University on the field knowing he came from a fraud, a cheat, a liar, knowing his team mates now saw him as the same, tainted? So he left, and joined the marines. His father was angry. No, not angry - sad, disappointed. Marcus couldn’t stand it – after all that had happened his father was still able to make him feel like _he_ was letting _him_ down.

“I think you’re making a mistake Marcus, a massive mistake.”

“Because I’m actually doing something _real_ with my life? Because I’m doing something that has meaning? You know, I kind of figured that instead of making up history, one of us might actually make some history.”

His father’s face, his father’s eyes.

“I just…don’t think you’ve thought this through. Joining the army – Marcus – it’s not a game.”

“I know it’s not a fucking _game_. Jesus.”

“I mean – I think you should take the time to fully consider your future. Leaving Columbia… It’s all been such a rush, you need to really _think_ …”

“Oh, _I_ need to really think? This coming from a man who thinks it’s acceptable to base an academic thesis on notes from a Jean fucking Plaidy novel.”

“Marcus…”

“No, Dad, save it. I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to hear anything from you ever again.”

And the pain of it sliced hot and white through his chest, the disappointment, the anger. All these years trying to win the love and pride of a man who turned out to be just as flawed and imperfect as anyone else. There was a tiny thrill too, to see his father brought low, to feel better than him for once, more worthy, the righteousness of his rage. Six months later Marcus was on his first tour and his father was dead. ‘Disgraced Academic in Fatal Car Smash’. ‘Disgraced Academic’s 200 ft Cliff Drop: Coroner rules suicide’. Marcus keeps the clippings tucked inside the fly cover of a mint edition of ‘ _Finding the Eagle: The Ninth Legion in Britain_ ’ by Professor F.M. Aquila, BA, MA, PhD, inside the top drawer of his father’s desk, now his. Marcus got his wish. He did not hear anything from his father ever again.

  
The next day Cottia comes barreling into his office, at her usual warp speed, curls bouncing haphazardly around her face.

“Knock much?” Marcus asks, from where he is sitting at his desk.

“Knocking is for ordinary people. I’m extraordinary.”

“Well, I can’t argue with that.”

“I need a copy of Frere, where’s yours?” she asks, pulling books at random from one of Marcus’ wall shelves and dumping them in an uneven stack. Marcus tries not to wince and gestures vaguely at the bookshelves by his window. “No, where is it M? I know you keep everything in some sort of insane OCD cataloguing system, as a creepy hangover from your army days.”

“We didn’t have books in the marines. They are yet to fully appreciate that the pen is mightier than the sword. But yes, everything’s organized alphabetically, within era.”

“Ha! And you wonder why you don’t have time for a social life.”

“Cottia, you really need to buy some of your own books. Or use the library. Most universities have one. As far as I know we’re no different.”

“I don’t like libraries. They expect you to return books.”

“ _I_ expect you to return books.”

“Even after all this time? Your faith in me is touching, but, honestly, pigeons learn faster than you. When do I ever return books?” She turns and peers over his shoulder at his computer, where he is ploughing through the rewrites of Chapter 12. “Anyway, how’s the opus maximus coming along?”

“It would be coming on better if you didn’t steal all of my books.”

“Not _all_ of your books. Only the expensive ones.” Marcus glances up at her, and decides to chance his arm.

“What’s the deal with Esca MacCunoval?” he asks, as casually as he can. “I mean, I checked on the system, and I know he’s on a scholarship here, but what’s his story?”

Cottia slides her eyes over him, amused. “Oh, you _noticed_ him did you?” she asks. “I didn’t realize he was your type. Bit young for you. Bit obvious.”

“Ha ha,” Marcus says flatly. His voice sounds more irritated than he intended it to, precisely because he _has_ noticed Esca in that way. Has noticed him in every way. “I just wondered because he’s so…inconsistent. Academically speaking. And he seems kind of angry. Not just in the general manner of the disaffected bourgeois youth either.”

“I dunno.” Cottia’s leafing distractedly through another one of Marcus’ textbooks. “Something juicy, I think. Like, he was in a Young Offender’s institute at some point. Why don’t you ask Sandra in the office if she’ll pull up his full application details for you? He’d have had to have declared any criminal convictions.”

“That sounds highly immoral, if not actively against data protection laws,” Marcus says dryly.

“Well, you either want to know or you don’t. Why are you really so interested? If it’s not just because of his boyish good looks. Did something happen?”

Marcus hesitates awkwardly. There’s no point lying to Cottia. She has a bloodhound’s instinct for gossip. “He…ah…he implied that…um, you know, if I gave him an extension for a piece of work he hadn’t done, he would, well, you know…” Marcus can feel the colour rising warmly to his cheeks.

Cottia looks delighted. “Oh, Marcus!” she wiggles her eyebrows suggestively. “And what did you say?”

“I told him no, obviously,” Marcus says hotly. “It’s completely unethical. Firstly, he’s a student and I’m his lecturer, and secondly it’s completely underhand.”

“So you didn’t give him an extension?”

“No, I gave him the extension.” Marcus didn’t think it was possible to be blushing more than he was already, but apparently it is.

“Bless you M! A word to the wise, next time, first get the oral sex then give the extension after.”

“I should’ve known you wouldn’t take this seriously,” Marcus mutters, turning back to his computer screen.

“I am taking it seriously. I seriously can’t believe you got propositioned by a student. I’m seriously jealous,” Cottia says blithely. “Although, come to think of it, I also can’t believe this is the first time it’s happened.” She reaches out and pinches his cheek. “What with you being so pretty and all.”

“Oh, stop it.” Marcus bats her hand away, he hopes good naturedly. “If the situation was reversed you wouldn’t be being so _laissez faire_ about it. I should go to the Dean.”

Cottia tries to look serious. “I’m sorry, M, you’re right, it must be awful for you being sexually harassed in such an impertinent manner. By a hot young student. Terrible. Just terrible.”

“It’s not just that,” Marcus adds, quieter now. He drops his eyes, already feeling the horrible needling of shame burning in his chest. “He mentioned my father. You know, something about me not being averse to fabricating history.”

Cottia’s eyes soften. “Well, that was a crappy thing to say. You mustn’t let stuff like that bother you. Especially not from some stupid kid. You’re _nothing_ like your father.”

“Don’t I know it. He was a brilliant scholar.”

“Okay, you’re a bit like your father. All the good bits. None of the bad bits.” Cottia punches him lightly on the shoulder.

“Thanks.” He gives her hand a gentle squeeze.

“Anyway, I’ve got what I came for,” she says, and winks. “Unlike Esca MacCunoval. Honestly, get the records from Sandra. Oh, and Marcus, remember what I said before – if someone tries to bribe you, it’s best practice to accept the bribe before you capitulate. You’re giving the whole concept of corruption a bad name.”

“Noted.”

  
There isn’t that much detail on Esca’s student record, but what there is is enough to make Marcus surprised that he has managed to get the grades required to get into a university as good as this one. From 7 years old he appeared to have been in and out of care and foster homes. Then aged 14 there was the conviction, two years in a young offenders’ institution. In the declaration box someone has scrawled ‘criminal damage’ and for a second Marcus is almost dismissive – what? Joy riding? Graffiti? Some other youthful misdemeanor? But then under that: ‘criminal damage with intent to endanger life’. Marcus wishes he knew more about the British legal system. What does that even mean? And then there are exam results, 12 As at GCSE, which Esca presumably started while in prison; 4 As at A-Level in a community college following his release. Contact details for his parole officer. A glowing personal reference from his headmaster. The details of his generous scholarship. A careless dash through ‘next of kin’ and N/A in the corresponding box.

Marcus feels nervous, sad, excited, sick. It reminds him of how he used to feel sneaking into his dad’s office to look at his porno magazines when he was out of the house, and then finding and leafing through his personal journal as well, all sweaty fingers and greasy breathing. _I shouldn’t be here, doing this, looking at this, it’s private_. The intrusion is both thrilling and revolting. And who is Esca? What is Esca? Marcus knows he should be put off by the contents of the file, but he isn’t, he is puzzled, moved, swirling with warm rushes of empathy. Maybe, if he is totally honest, a little turned on. Esca is damaged and dangerous. Like Marcus. Esca is… a glorious mystery.

  
At the end of the week there is a knock on the door to Marcus’ study.

“Hmmm?” It isn’t his office hours, so Marcus expects it to be one of his colleagues, or maybe a PhD student. But the door opens, and it’s Esca. Marcus allows himself a brief movie-sequence fantasy where Esca strides across the office towards him, and they embrace passionately, to the sound of rising violins. Maybe it’s snowing. Maybe Esca has snow in his hair. Maybe he isn’t wearing a shirt.

“Dr. Aquila?” Marcus realizes he has been staring slightly absently into the middle distance.

“Yes. Mr. MacCunoval.”

“I wanted to…ask your opinion about my essay.”

“This would be the essay that’s due in at 4pm this afternoon?” Marcus asks dryly.

“The very same.” Esca comes and stands by his desk, laying a clean sheaf of freshly printed paper in front of Marcus. “Seeming I need to get about 90% on it not to fail this term,” a slight roll to his eyes, “I thought you could maybe have a look at this paragraph - here - just to sense-check the reasoning sounds alright…” he is pointing to a passage partway down the third page. Marcus doesn’t usually give feedback on drafts of undergraduate essays, but he is so curious, now, about Esca, about his work, that he can’t help himself. He starts to read, his pen poised to make amendments, his tongue poised to offer advice. His skin, his belly, his cock are uncomfortably aware of how close Esca is standing to him, the cool radiance of his body. Then he is just reading. And reading.

The essay is a work of art. Marcus feels that heady cool joy in his mind, where you find an idea, and another, and another, and it all runs together, perfect, the great white purity of your brain working without you, running ahead of you, like some glorious machine. In these moments he can forget about his leg, the life he could have had, the dreams that left him behind. He can forget everything. This is focused thinking, rare, amazing; flow. It reminds Marcus of the pleasure of just running and running ‘til your chest hurts and your thighs scream and your eyes sting, but it’s the sting that means you’re alive. It’s like the moment when you’re running on the football field, and you can see the line you’re going to take between the defenders so clearly before you, it’s lit up like a landing strip, you can see the ball touch down, you can see it all, your body already _knows_ , like a Grand Master, so many steps ahead of the game. It is like this with Esca’s writing.

From the first few paragraphs Marcus can tell he is in the presence of an intellectual athlete, a colossus, and he is just grateful he is clever enough to understand, to appreciate how rare this is. It is thrilling. It is so thrilling, so special, that for a moment, for one terrible, dangerous moment, when Esca interrupts him with a “well?” he wants to keep reading more than he wants to fuck him. Then he looks up, sees Esca’s bright grey eyes come alive under his gaze, sees the angles of his collarbone, sees the way he licks his lips and stares back at Marcus, the tight bud of his mouth quirk dangerously close to an excited smile, sees the colour rise to flush his pale, pale cheeks, and he wants to fuck him more than he’s ever wanted to do anything in his life. His prick becomes a giant eraser, deleting any more aesthetic thoughts from his mind.

“It’s good,” Marcus says slowly, awkwardly aware of how hard he is all of a sudden, not even sure when it happened, when he looked at Esca, or before, when he was reading, when it was like he could see Esca, really _see_ him, for the first time. “It’s really, really good.”

“Yeah?” Esca looks breathless, happy. “Do you think so?”

“Yeah, I….” _want to kiss you, I want to kiss you, right on your smile, I want to laugh into your mouth_ “…I think it’s excellent.”

“Hmmm?” Esca moves closer, so his hip is bumping against Marcus’ bicep, and Marcus can smell him, cigarettes, laundry, and deeper than that, the clean lemony pinch of Esca’s skin, the smell of cool spring in hot countries, the smell of new trees and clear waters, a wild smell, primal and pure.

“Yeah…” _I want your smell all over me, I want it under my fingernails and on my tongue, I want to fuck you all night long and not shower, so all day at work I can smell you on me, between my thighs, against my neck_. Esca’s eyes are on him, and they change slowly, from proud and glowy, to deeper and hotter. His pupils look blown. The tips of his ears pinken. It’s like there are a thousand warm, dark sparks flying between them, thrumming and popping all down the length of Marcus’ spine. “It’s brilliant,” and then before he can stop himself, “and so are you, Esca. I mean, you have so much potential, I wish you could see that, I wish you would stop with this act of pretending you don’t care about your work, about your scholarship, about your future. I mean, you’ve worked so hard for this! I read your application form, I know a bit about what you came from. It’s truly impressive. And now you have such a talent, you should embrace it, you should reach out and cling onto it with both hands, you should….” Too late Marcus senses the subtle shift between them. Esca’s eyes stutter, blink, and go out. The look of surly amusement comes back to his face, his mouth hardens and pales.

“I’m glad it’s met your expectations, _Doctor_ Aquila, but, please, save me the lecture on my untapped potential. It’s boring. The last thing I want is some after school special chat about how I can turn my life around if only I carry on believing in myself, just to fit your bad-boy-gone-good schema. I just wanted to check the essay made sense to you. You know, so I don’t fail and get sent back to the shit hole I apparently managed to drag myself up from.”

“Esca…” Marcus starts.

“No, no. Thanks and all, but I don’t need to hear it. Especially not from someone who’s never had to struggle for anything in their life.”

Marcus bristles at the unfairness of this comment, but what can he say? He is Esca’s tutor. He can hardly start relating his life’s story to him. _Why can’t you know me?_ he thinks. _Why can’t you even want to know me? Like I want to know you.  
_  
“Well, then,” Marcus says shortly. “I think it’s good. I think there’s no danger of returning to any _shit holes_. Not as far as my class is concerned. I’ll expect the final draft by four.”

“Right.” And then Esca is gone.

  
The next week passes uneventfully, with Esca largely ignoring him in both lectures and seminars unless Marcus asks him a direct question. The guarded, distant look is back in his eyes. _But then what did you expect? What did you expect, Marcus?_ Marcus tries not to dwell on what his heart’s own great expectations were. Tries not to think about the time when he was vibrant, and strong, and whole, and the son of a great man, and girls would cut their eyes at him and boys would look over and lick their lips, smile. When Esca might have… well… He is trying not to think about this, trying to focus on spinning his fountain pen perfectly between three fingers, when Professor Stephanos says something that makes him sit up and pay attention.

“So – Esca MacCunoval. I have a meeting with the Dean of Studies on Monday. I’m thinking about raising the issue of…well…a disciplinary. It’s just not acceptable for a scholarship student to be maintaining such a poor standard of work.”

They are at the bi-weekly History Faculty meeting: a session of endless discussion about timetabling and bitching about AHRC funding cutbacks that normally bores Marcus to tears.

Marcus looks up abruptly, a swift swell of panic rising in his chest. “Esca MacCunoval? But he’s…well, he’s an exceptionally gifted student.”

“Well, clearly someone in admissions thought so too, but so far he’s shown no evidence of that,” Prof. Stephanos replies levelly.

“He’s…I’ve seen evidence,” Marcus says, quickly, awkwardly. “I mean, I can honestly tell you his essay for me this term on Athenian democracy in the classical age was one of the best pieces of academic writing I’ve read in my life. Not even academic writing. Any writing.”

Cottia regards him narrowly from under her lids. _I’ll bet_ , her look says. For a second Marcus is angry with her, genuinely angry, she has no idea how brilliant Esca really is, how complex he is, how _much_ he is…

“Hmmmm, well. If only he would bother turning in a piece of work to _any_ of his other tutors then maybe we could all share in your pleasure. But it seems he is radically averse to completing assignments,” says Prof. Stephanos. “Any one else?”

Marcus shoots Cottia a desperate look, his earlier anger at her extinguishing as quickly as it flared. She rolls her eyes at him and shrugs.

“Well,” she says, finally, “he is always very good in tutorials. Very insightful.”

“But he doesn’t actually hand in any written work for you Cottia. And neither does he bother to turn up for collections.”

“No…” she says. “I guess… No.”

“He’s…you know… he’s not like our typical students,” Marcus says, still speaking in a low, stilting voice. His heart is thundering in his ears. He feels like he’s suffering from vertigo. He’s worried his true feeling for Esca are written all over his face. _Get a grip on yourself, Marcus, this is Esca’s future._ “It’s really amazing that he’s managed to overcome…so many obstacles. Surely we can cut him some slack?”

Prof. Stephanos raises an eyebrow. “Just how much slack were you thinking Marcus? He’s already been here for 4 terms. In first year – well, these things are perhaps more common. But I have the Dean to account to if a student fails to complete second year. And we all know how… _passionately_ she feels about these things.” Some other faculty members smile and sigh at this.

“Just… You know… It’s not much fun losing a scholarship,” Marcus says quietly. Professor Stephanos regards him gently, his eyes soft with sympathy.

“No, well, that’s very true. But at the end of the day, we’re an academic institution, Marcus, not social workers. If a student persistently fails to hand in work, to turn up for exams, we can’t keep rewarding their bad behaviour. Financially or otherwise. It sets a bad example to the other students, and it makes a mockery of how hard _we_ work, of our careers, our lives.”

“I know that,” Marcus clears his throat, swallows heavily. “I mean… can I have a word with him? I just think… he really is an exceptionally talented academic. It would be a shame. Could we just…try?”

Prof. Stephanos looks slightly bemused.

“Very well. Since you seem to have taken such a _shine_ to him, Marcus, you can have a word. I can reassign you as his personal tutor if you like. But if things haven’t turned around by the Christmas break, I’m warning you, I will be left with no other option but to discuss this issue further with the Dean.”

“Okay,” Marcus says. “Thanks.”

The discussion returns to endless, and largely pointless, discussion of whether the REF is likely to be delayed by a further 18 months, or happen in 2013 as planned. Marcus can feel Cottia frantically trying to attract his attention, tilting her head and widening her eyes. She even goes as far to pass a note across to him, as if they were still in pre-school. He ignores it and continues to give the pen his undivided attention.

[Part Two](http://pouxin.livejournal.com/1043.html)


	2. Petting Teacher</p>

_  
**Petting Teacher (2/4) | Marcus/Esca | NC-17**   
_   


**Title:** Petting Teacher

 **Rating:** NC-17

 **Pairing** Marcus/Esca

____________

  
Marcus can’t avoid Cottia forever.

“You ignored my note,” she chides, bouncing up to him and tugging on his arm as they walk through the quad.

“I’m not going to read a note you pass me in a meeting, Cottia. We’re not in Junior High.”

“I love it when you talk all Judy Blume to me. I can’t believe you ignored my note.” She pouts.

Marcus sighs. “Fine. Sorry. What did it say?”  
  
“It said Marcus hearts Esca 4 eva.”

“Ha ha.” Marcus keeps his eyes fixed ahead, and quickens his pace, feeling his leg give a grumble of objection.

Cottia skitters in front of him, heading him off. “Come on M, what’s going on with you? Can we get a drink and have a talk about it?”

“Nothing’s going on with me.”

“Right. So first of all you tell me a story about Mr. A for a lay Esca MacCunoval, and how immoral it all is, and the next thing I know you’re defending him in front of our Head of Department and offering to be his _personal tutor_? This is such a bad idea, I can’t tell you.”

“It’s fine. I have the situation under control.” Cottia regards him skeptically. “Cottia! I have the situation under control.”

“Marcus, you don’t. You’re like a giant puppy over him. You’re totally smitten. You could get in serious trouble; I don’t know why you won’t engage with me about this.”

“Because there’s nothing going on!” Marcus exclaims, exasperated.

“For now. But now you want to have one on one tutorials with him? We’ve discussed this before, generally, you know, how passionate tutorials are, all the debating and learning and getting to know one another. It’s a really sexy experience. Two people sitting together and talking through how Latin love poetry really works. And this is with someone you obviously care about! How do you intend to desexualize that?”

“I don’t teach Latin love poetry, you’re confusing us with the Classics department.”

“Oh, whatever,” Cottia flicks her hair, annoyed. “Come on. You know exactly what I mean. If you’re not worried about you, about your career, your feelings, you should at least be worried about him.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It’s dangerous for him as well. I mean, it’s not just the power thing, or the fact that he has already tried to explicitly swap an extension on his work for sex, it’s…well, like you said. He hasn’t had an easy life. I just think it’s obvious that someone from a dysfunctional background like that is going to be attracted to someone like you, you know, his teacher, nurturing, caring. But it could really fuck up. For both of you.”

“I _know_ that Cottia. I have no intention of entering into a relationship with Esca,” Marcus replies, struggling to keep his voice sounding calm and level.

“This is so fucked up,” she mutters.

“No, it’s not! Because **nothing is going on**. And even if it was, I don’t get why you’re being so high and mighty about this all of a sudden. Are you suggesting that only people of equal power - however you define _that_ \- can ever have a relationship? I mean, that would rule out God knows what percentage of the population from ever being involved with each other.”

“I’m not saying that! I’m just saying – I care about you Marcus. And I know you care about your students. And Esca. I don’t want… I want all good things for you. This is your life, your career. I don’t want you to make a terrible mistake.”

“Like my dad, you mean?”

Marcus –” Cottia places her hand back on his arm, her voice and eyes soft again.

“No, you know what, I can’t talk to you about this right now,” Marcus snaps.

And he limps with as much dignity as he can master into the library, where Cottia can’t talk at him, however much she might want to.

It definitely appears as if Esca is waiting for him after the lecture. Marcus busies himself shutting down his PowerPoint slides. His hands are shaking. His mouth is dry. He feels like he’s in that song by _The Police_.

Esca saunters casually over to the front desk. “So,” he says, “I hear you’re responsible for me still having my scholarship.”

“I don’t know where you heard that from, Mr. MacCunoval, but I can assure you it absolutely isn’t true,” Marcus asserts, not quite able to meet Esca’s eyes.

Esca smiles at him, so unexpected, pure sunlight and golden clouds parting like treacle, that Marcus feels his breath catch in his throat. “Relax. I’m not here to have a go at you. I just wanted to say thanks.”

“Right, well, we do need to have a discussion about you completing some of the assignments you’ve failed to hand in this term,” Marcus begins, but Esca looks distracted, still half smiling, his gaze running from Marcus’ eyes down to his mouth.

“Is there any way in particular you had in mind for me to thank you?” he asks, moving almost imperceptibly closer. He reaches out a hand to casually pick a piece of fluff off the shoulder of Marcus’ jacket. “If not, I’m sure we could come up with something _together_.” The hand on his jacket runs slowly, purposefully down Marcus’ bicep, and settles in the soft, secret crook of his elbow.

“Um…” Marcus’ mind is a complete blank. All he can think of is how glad he is that he is standing up this time, as he squares his shoulders and faces Esca head on, trying to use his superior height and size to inch Esca backwards and give him some space. To think. To _breathe_. Undeterred, Esca simply crowds in on him, backing him up until the backs of his thighs hit the side of the desk. Esca’s eyes are hypnotic. “Um…” Marcus attempts again. Esca leans in close enough that Marcus can smell toothpaste and cigarettes on his breath.

“What’s the problem, Marcus?” Esca says in his ear. His voice is pitched low, amused, teasing. “I promise it won’t damage my self-development or anything. Come on. You must have thought about how this might play out.”

His earlier conversation with Cottia is ringing in his mind as Marcus tries to sidle sideways away from the tantalizing freshness of Esca’s body. “ _If_ I was involved in any faculty decision about your work plan going forward, I did it because I think you’re a talented student. Not because I expect… All I expect from you is, you know, that you…um…complete your assignments, that you try hard…” but it’s hard to talk with Esca so close to him, long and lean like a hunting cat, the waspish pinch of his smell, stinging along Marcus’ never endings like fire.

“Oh, I can try,” Esca murmurs, the burr of his voice almost a purr. “I can try really, really _hard._ I promise, you won’t have had anyone try you harder…”. He pauses then, winks, and laughs slightly, at Marcus, at himself. His shoulders relax, and he gives Marcus the happy, open look of an old friend, of a lover. “Look, I promise it’s not just about gratitude, okay. I want it. And it’s not like you don’t want it,” and he presses his hand, hard and deliberate, against the front of Marcus’ suit trousers, where his erection is threatening to split the fabric. Esca pulses his long, slim fingers quickly against the heated length of him, and Marcus feels his mouth go dry, his breath stop. He wishes he could think. He wishes there was still some blood left in his brain to think. Well, to think more than how good this feels, Esca’s wiry thigh up against his bulkier one, Esca’s breath on his neck, Esca’s hand - oh God, Esca’s hand - on his cock.

“Wow,” and here Esca chuckles, “you _really_ want it.”

His fingers go to the zipper on Marcus’ fly. _Oh Esca_ , _touch me._ Marcus’ arms feel like lead. It takes a superhuman amount of strength to raise them up, to use one hand to capture Esca’s nimble fingers, one to brace against his warm chest.

“Esca, no, stop, come on,” he says, “this is… it’s not just about your work, about you. It’s…we’re _both_ better than this. I feel… you’re…”

“Jesus, Marcus,” Esca twines their fingers together, then rubs the back of Marcus knuckles against his own cock. “Just relax for a second. Stop with all this feelings stuff. It’s very noble of you, but it’s pretty clear this,” and here another rub, slow, deliberate, “is going to happen. And anyway, it’s not like you _love_ me.” He pulls back a little to meet Marcus’ gaze, grey eyes cool and amused. Marcus’ heart thumps alarmingly, he feels a flare of panic, knows Esca sees it.

Esca looks horrified. “Oh my God, you _love_ me.”

“No, Esca, I just think you’re… you’re such a brilliant person, you’re so… I want to help you, you know? I want to… I don’t want to just be your professor who screwed you. I think you’ve had enough people in your life doing that. I want to be there for you. I want…” Marcus says quickly, desperately.

Esca steps back quickly, nostrils flaring. “Oh, please. What, you think you can fix me or something? That I need fixing. Well, you can’t fix me. I’m _unfixable_.” He gives a mean, hard smile, and then moves forward again, pushes Marcus back even further against the desk. His hand settles back on Marcus’ groin, where his treacherous cock is still hard as a diamond cutter. “I don’t want you to fix me, okay? I just want you to fuck me. Now do us both a favour, and shut up.”

Then his mouth is on Marcus’, his tongue surprisingly cool as it slides into his mouth, his lips soft under the rasp of his stubble. One hand reaches up to press strongly into the thick bulk of Marcus’ neck, where his pulse is leaping madly, the other finishes its assault on his zipper, and Marcus feels the touch of Esca’s cool fingers ghost against the damp, heated tip of his cock. With his other hand, Esca presses Marcus’ neck hard enough to make him gasp for breath, making his prick pulse with renewed interest. It’s too much. If he doesn’t do something now, he never will.

“Esca!” Marcus says, and it comes out far firmer than he’d anticipated, although still with a hoarse ring of arousal. “Stop. This isn’t what I want. Not now. Not like this. Just stop.” The fingers immediately withdraw, and Marcus aches from their loss, despite himself. “Esca.”

“Right, no I get it, you’re ‘better’ than this. Isn’t that what you said?” Esca’s tone is sardonic, although at least that fierce anger isn’t in his eyes.

Marcus thinks desperately about how he can fix this. _Fix this Marcus_! “I didn’t mean like that… I meant…”

“Fine, well whatever you meant, if you change your mind, you know where to find me,” and with that Esca turns on his heels and is gone.

  
Esca takes a seat near the front of the lecture theatre and looks directly at Marcus, his eyes the colour of water. His hair looks dirty, dark bronze and dull gold; it makes Marcus ache inside in a way that is at once both hurting and tender. Liathan is next to him, black eyed and bored looking, sprawled along the bench, chewing gum. As Marcus begins the lecture Esca continues to stare, his face inscrutable, shadowed. Initially Marcus feels his heart speed up, delighted to be the sole object of Esca’s attention, but soon he starts to find it unnerving.

Esca doesn’t take his eyes from Marcus as he slides one arm along the back of the seats, allowing his hand to curl up and catch in Liathan’s shock of dark hair. Then he leans his face over and presses a slow, wet kiss into the side of Liathan’s neck. Liathan closes his eyes and tilts his head back, hair still caught in Esca’s grip. All the time Esca’s eyes are on Marcus. Marcus feels like his heart has stopped, caught in some sharp talon of disbelief and horror. He wants to go and wrench them apart; he wants to smack Liathan right across his smug, disparaging face; he wants to grasp Esca by the shoulders and shake him and shake him until he can see, until he can just _fucking see_ … But he is shackled, immobile, impotent, can do nothing. He feels like Odysseus tied to the mast, and there is Esca, his skin singing to him, but he cannot touch him, inside or outside, _his meadow starred with flowers_. Marcus’ voice falters mid-sentence, feeling a lurch inside his stomach, seasick with jealousy.

Esca draws back from Liathan’s bared neck long enough to give Marcus a tight, cruel smile and then licks a long, deliberate stripe up towards his ear. Marcus can’t see his other hand under the heads of the students in front, but it certainly looks as if it has moved in the direction of Liathan’s thigh.

“Mr. MacCunoval, Mr. Prince,” Marcus barks, trying to sound irritated and brusque instead of burning, breaking. “I would ask you both to refrain from treating my lecture theatre like the back row of the movies.”

Esca pulls away, squinting one eye at Marcus almost sleepily. His rubs at the back of his head.

“Sorry _Sir_ ,” he drawls, as Liathan smirks.  
 _  
If you change your mind, you know where to find me.  
_

Marcus tries to focus on the rewrites Cottia has suggested for the second chapter of the book, but all he can think about is Esca. _Esca. Esca_. Marcus hasn’t felt like this since he was a teenager, the strange almost hallucinogenic quality of his thoughts, the blurring of mind and body into one pulsing core, so reality becomes a daze, and his imaginings take on a bright, almost cinematic quality. When he is awake he obsessively replays conversations, thinks about Esca’s history, his hopes, what his dreams might be. When he is asleep, or in that twilight state between sleep and wakefulness, his thoughts turn darker. Sliding his cock into the delicious sulk of Esca’s mouth. Holding Esca face down over the desk in the lecture theatre, grinding against him. Esca pressing back, hot, wanton. _“You like that, then?” “Please”._ Curling his fingers into Esca’s clenching, slippery heat. _“So this is what you want.”_ And Esca moaning, helpless around him. _“This is what you want, huh?”_ His tongue finding that sweet spot beneath Esca’s earlobe. Esca on his knees again. _“Say please” “Please”_ _“ Say ‘please Marcus can I suck your cock’”_. Of course in these dreams Marcus is whole again, whole and strong, and Esca’s eyes are always bright with love.

  
Marcus is on his way to his car one evening – being a blue badge holder means he has access to one of the only university designated car parking spots, something of which Cottia is wildly jealous – when he sees Esca in the shadows round the back of the department building, huddled into the wall against the cold, pulling pensively on a cigarette. He looks impossibly sad, impossibly perfect. The desire to touch him is almost pain.

“Esca!” Marcus calls, before he can stop himself. Esca looks over at him, his eyes narrowing. Then he abruptly drops the cigarette and grinds it out with the heel of his boot before loping towards Marcus.

“What?” he asks, when he gets closer.

“Okay,” Marcus says brokenly. And his chest feels empty, hollowed out. He has never felt so alone, so far from himself. But there is a relief in that. To be free from the relentless tight, hot wanting, from the anger, from the sharp jabs of desire mixed through with shame. To be free from the constant burden of him, in his mind, always. “Okay.”

“Okay, what?” Esca asks, his eyes narrowing. He starts to take a step closer to Marcus, then hesitates, foot paused just above the ground with the grace of a ballerina.

“Okay, you win. I want you. You can have me.” His voice is flat, but even as he says it, he feels the slow tick of his heart start back up again, feeling returns in a gradual fizz to his fingertips. He is going to touch Esca, feel him, his hands, his sharp mouth. Feel him all the way inside. He reaches up and places his hand, lightly, on the side of Esca’s arm, where the tattoo starts to sneak out from under the sleeve of his t-shirt. The skin is cool, like sorbet against Marcus’ overly-heated flesh. “And I won’t try and _fix_ you. We can just….you know….”

“Fuck?” Esca prompts. He sounds amused, but something else. Angry. Disappointed?

“Yeah,” Marcus moves his hand lower, fingers skimming the rough skin of Esca’s elbow. Esca moves in, quickly, so they are toe to toe, bodies almost touching from tip to tip. Still that deadness in his chest, but his skin is alive now, electrified.

Esca tilts his face up, so Marcus can feel his hot, smoky breath against his ear. “And what makes you think I want to fuck you?” It’s a hiss.

“Um….” Marcus starts, “well, you know. I….”

“Because I don’t. Not anymore. You had your chance, you made your choice.” He steps back slightly so Marcus can see his face again, the pointed anger of it, the tight little mouth always one step inbetween smirk and snarl. “You’ve decided you want to slum it for a while, is that it? Have a little thing with the bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks? Well, I wouldn’t want to make you _lower_ yourself to my level, Marcus. Please. Don’t feel like you’d be doing me a favour.”

“No, no, it’s not that, I want to,” Marcus says quickly. He takes hold of Esca’s arm again, the same cool skin, belying the heat in his eyes. “I want to,” he repeats firmly. Esca places the palm of his hand flat against Marcus’ chest; for a minute his heart leaps to press against it, blood thundering.

Then Esca gives him a hard shove, enough to make Marcus stumble slightly, step backwards. “Well, I don’t. Not now. Not ever. There was a moment when I thought you were….” Here Esca shrugs, all long-limbed lanky grace “ _interesting_. But you’re not. You’re dull, Marcus. Dull and predictable. And that makes me not interested. Not remotely interested.” He meets Marcus’ eyes for a full second, his own stare pointed and full of dark grey malice, and holds his gaze, steady, steady, like he wants to make sure his next words find their mark. “Besides, I already got my A.”

And with that Esca turns on his heels, and starts to stride away, quickly, not looking back.

  
It’s a relief in a way. _You always believed you couldn’t have him Marcus, and now you know._ _And_ _now you know._ Now the feeling is containable, manageable. Marcus has a lot of experience in managing pain, in boxing it up and storing it carefully, only allowing it out a drip at a time. His mother’s voice, singing to him at night. The cool backs of her hands pressed to his forehead. The way she used to dab her tongue gently into his eyes when they were puffy and allergic from the sultry, dirty New York summers. Scoring a winning touchdown, his muscles raw and alive with power. His father at his high school graduation, _‘I’m proud of you Marcus’. ‘I’m proud of you’_. Things he wanted to hear, gone. _‘He leaves one son’_. The other men in his unit, the ones who died. The one who died beside him. And now, Esca.

Except Esca again waits behind after Marcus’ last lecture of term. _I will not hope, I will not fear_. He has a strange, troubled expression Marcus hasn’t seen before. He looks…nervous. Marcus didn’t realize nerves were something which featured in Esca’s emotional repertoire.

“So, uh…” Esca starts, his eyes flickering nervously across Marcus’ face. “I wanted to apologise. You know. About….well. I heard about what happened to you, in the army,” he says this last part in a rush.

Marcus is surprised. “And where did you hear that?”

“You’re not the only one capable of doing a bit of background research,” Esca responds, dryly. “But I just wanted to say… That was really brave. I was a dick before, you know. I, ahem, it was totally wrong of me to… to assume you’d never had… you know, anything bad happen to you. I just… I made an assumption, based on what you looked like, how you seem, and I was totally out of order. It was wrong. I’m sorry.”

Marcus is so startled by this turn of events, he doesn’t know what to say.

“That’s… okay. Thanks,” he adds lamely.

Esca scuffs his boot awkwardly against the edge of a floorboard. “So, I mean, the Silver Star? That’s like getting a VC right?”

Marcus gives a small snort. “Hardly. The VC is like the Medal of Honor.”

“Well, whatever. A medal for heroism is a medal for heroism, as I see it.” Esca has a funny look on his face, grudging, respectful, unsure. “Is that how you…” he gestures at Marcus’ leg.

“Yep,” Marcus says brusquely. “I was lucky to keep it, to be honest. Very lucky. I saw a lot of men less lucky.” He tries not to think about how desperately _unlucky_ he feels, how angry, how unwhole, how much it hurts him on cold days, when he can’t walk up as much as a flight of stairs without the cane, when he looks down in the shower at the wasted angry mess that used to be smooth, sleek muscle.

“But it still hurts you?” Esca’s eyes are soft, gentle.

“I was lucky,” Marcus repeats gruffly.

Esca clears his throat and continues. “And I’m sorry I said that stuff about your dad. I don’t know anything about him, not really. And I know – I _know_ – you’re not like that.”

“It’s alright,” Marcus shrugs. “You only said what everyone is always thinking.”

“No, it’s not alright,” Esca says hotly. “It’s the same… With my father…it was the same. And I shouldn’t….well…”

Marcus raises his eyebrows at Esca. He has never seen him so stumbling, so awkward and inarticulate.

“My dad was…well… He was a gangster, really, I guess,” Esca pauses, embarrassed. “It sounds ridiculous to say it now. He was a fixer. He used to lend money, you know. Sort things out for people. It was amazing growing up. He knew everyone, and they all treated him like Lord of the Manor. It was like I was Prince of the estate. I know now, that what he did, how wrong it was, but I…he was my hero. I…. Well….” Esca looks down at the ground, his face hard, his eyes shuttered, unreadable.

“Then what happened?” Marcus asks gently. “You went…they took you away from him? Into care?”

“Yeah, but not because of that,” Esca says. “My dad fucked up, I guess. A bunch of guys came round to my house. They… attacked him. Mum tried to intervene, and she… Well, they killed her too. I only… Well, I crawled into one of the kitchen cupboards, and I guess they didn’t notice me, which is lucky, because they turned the rest of the place upside down, looking for stuff. Drugs. Money.”

“And you _saw_ all this?” Marcus is appalled.

Esca shrugs. “Didn’t see it. Heard it. There was no way I was seeing anything. I just stayed in that cupboard and wouldn’t leave ‘til a policeman hauled me out.” He pauses. “It felt like hours. Days.” He hesitates. “I guess I was lucky they were in a hurry. I guess I was lucky they didn’t find me.”

Marcus doesn’t want to think about _that_. “And no one else would look after you? Family?”

“There wasn’t any other family.” Esca looks up, his face pale and tightly controlled. “Or if there was, none that I ever knew about. So it was social services, the children’s home. Which was pretty rough. My dad was well-known in the local area. The other kids… they didn’t go easy on me. I know it sounds stupid, but I wasn’t ready for it, I was actually quite a sweet kid. My dad and my mum, they’d always protected me from what my dad did, they’d always… I was the apple of their eye. I had everything I ever wanted. They even sent me to private school. I had to wear a straw fucking boater. And then suddenly I was meant to have all these street smarts, I was meant to be hard, I was MacCunoval’s kid. Well…” He looks up, and meets Marcus’ eyes uncertainly. “But the worse thing, the worse thing was that until then everyone had always loved me. I… Well, I quickly learnt that was no longer the case.”

Marcus’ heart hurts. He wants to touch Esca, to soothe him. He wants to take him in his arms and press him to his chest and hold him there forever, so nothing and no one can ever get to him again. He feels crippled by it, the overwhelming strength of this feeling, it suffuses him with warmth and savages him at the same time. Terrifying Esca, beautiful Esca.

“You know, my mom died when I was younger as well,” he says. “And then my dad… well, you know what happened to him. It’s… I’m sorry that happened to you, Esca. I wish… I wish things could be different.”

“I know, I’m sorry too. I’m sorry about all the stuff I said. It was shitty of me.” Esca hesitates, unsure. His eyes flit nervously across Marcus’ face, then away again. “And I was a dick in the car park too. You know… that was…. I know it was hard for you to say all that, and I was an idiot about it, I’m sorry.”

“Hey,” Marcus says gently, wryly. “It’s not like it’s the first time I’ve been knocked back. I’m sure it won’t be the last either.” His eyes stray inadvertently down to his ruined leg, Esca sees, his eyes softening with pity, and Marcus can’t stand it. “Anyway,” he adds quickly, “it was a stupid idea. I could lose my job. I think the Department tends to frown upon that kind of thing.”

He attempts a weak smile, but Esca is still looking at him seriously, earnestly. “Marcus—”

“Don’t,” Marcus says quickly, “don’t say anything else.” If Esca says one more nice thing, one more sympathetic thing, looks at Marcus one more time with pity or sorrow, it will break him. He didn’t realize how badly he needed, on some level, to still think that Esca desired him, really desired him, not just so Marcus would give him something he wanted, but for _him_ , for Marcus.

“Okay,” Esca says, “I won’t.” And then he reaches out one hand to gently cup against the side of Marcus’ face, and then he is kissing him. It’s a friend’s kiss more than a lover’s kiss, close-mouthed and gentle. Then Esca’s lips part, and his body pulls Marcus towards him, and Marcus feels a hundred year old groan escape him. Esca does want this. Esca wants what he wants. They both want the same thing. Esca’s skin smells like lemons. His lips are rough and slightly chapped, but to Marcus they feel like petals. Then the door at the top of the lecture theatre bangs open, and they jump apart as if they’ve been branded.

It’s Liathan. Marcus isn’t sure what he’s seen, but he’s obviously seen something, because his normally wry mouth makes a perfect round O of shock, and then he laughs quickly. “O-Kaaay,” he says. For a moment Esca seems frozen, then his eyes dart quickly to the side, and up to Liathan. Esca smiles, the mean, hard smile Marcus remembers from the car park.

“Oh, hey. I was just… _sorting out my grades for this year_ ,” Esca says, his tone arch, knowing, and the words feel like a thousand tiny needles pricking across Marcus’ throat.

“Right,” and Liathan smiles back, his eyes cruel, like he and Esca are sharing a private joke. “Well, don’t let him work you too hard.” This is almost directed at Marcus. He gives one final smirk, and then, shouldering the bag he has obviously come to collect, heads back out the door.

Esca’s face is totally inscrutable. Marcus feels funny, like a dog that has been knocked down by a truck, but somehow managed to spring back on its feet and kid itself everything is alright again. He runs a hand awkwardly through his hair. He needs to believe very badly that Esca said that because he didn’t want Liathan to know there was anything… _real_. Not because… not because…

“Well…” he says.

“He won’t say anything,” Esca says quickly. “He knows it’s nothing.” _Nothing_. Marcus remembers the moment his leg got injured, the slicing rip of it, then nothing. No pain. Just some remnant of feeling, like white noise. He remembers reaching down to feel the wound, the fear, gasping and clenching, _why can’t I feel my leg? Please be there, please be there…_ He can’t stand it, feeling this way again, this out of control fear, like love, like tearing.

“I don’t… It’s not…” Marcus begins.

“You won’t lose your job because of me. I’ll make sure of it.”

“It’s not about losing my job. You know, I doubt I even would. I’d just be conforming to type, right? The infamous Doctors Aquila. First my dad fabricates a whole bunch of evidence for his book, then I have an affair with a student. I doubt the university would expect anything less of me.”

For a minute Esca looks like he is in pain, and then his face shutters closed.

“Don’t say that. Anyway, we’re not having an affair. That was… I was being ridiculous before with the essay and the offering to sleep with you, I know that. I just came to say I’m sorry. I think you’re a brilliant teacher.” Esca’s voice sounds brittle, weird, and Marcus feels his heart give another twist of alarm. “Honestly. And I know… I know you were trying to do the right thing by me and all. I’m not so far gone I can’t see that. So… thank you.”

“But just now, the kiss…”

“Yeah, well,” Esca shrugs. “That was obviously a mistake. We were both upset. I… I wanted to comfort you, that’s all.”

“I do… I realize it’s totally inappropriate…but…. I don’t care,” Marcus says slowly, “I really like you, Esca.” Esca takes a step back and regards Marcus with that strange shut-off expression again, saying nothing. The words hang in the air between them, limp and heavy. Marcus doesn’t know what else he can say, what he can do…

“Well, you shouldn’t”

“Why?”

“There’s no point.”

“Thanks.”

“I’m sorry.”

Marcus feels all at once like an open wound. He can’t believe that five minutes ago Esca was in his arms, warm and vibrant and vital, and now he is looking at him like they barely know each other. He is angry for letting himself feel this way. For not knowing any better. But didn’t he always know it would sting like this? Right from the first time he saw Esca. He always knew he could never have him. Someone like Marcus could never have someone like Esca. Not truly.

“You don’t understand, Marcus. It’s not just about you losing your job.”

“What don’t I _understand_ now Esca?” he’s angry, at himself really, but the sentence comes out hard, peppered liberally with sarcasm.

“Look at yourself, Marcus. You’d just feel shitty if you were with me, it’s against your whole belief system. And-“ he holds up a hand to silence Marcus, who had been about to object “you’re so… you’re so _good_. You’re so brave and… Well. I’ve done so much. Things you could never ever know about.”

“You make yourself sound like Eroll Flynn.”

“Who?”

“Never mind. I’m not anyway near as good as you seem to think. And I know… come on, I know you were in the YO. I know you did some bad stuff. But that’s not _you.”_ He takes a hesitant step towards Esca again, who immediately backs away.

“It just wouldn’t work, we’re too different, you’re too… nice. Sweet.”

The words sting Marcus like a swift uppercut to the side of his face. “I’m too _sweet_? Seriously, Esca, what is this? Are you telling me you prefer a bit of rough? Someone all edgy with some rock and roll haircut, like Liathan or something? I served in the army for two years. I’ve seen bad things, I’ve done bad things. I’m not exactly a virgin.” Esca’s lips twitch at this, and Marcus feels suddenly exasperated, tired into his bones, melancholy settling over him like a fog. “Right, well, I see this all a game to you, I apologise for making you feel uncomfortable.”

“Marcus—”

“I think it’s best if you leave. _Now.”_ Marcus says, trying to keep his voice cool.

Esca looks like he is about to say something else, but instead he shrugs, nods. “Well, see you,” he says quietly. “And thanks. For everything.”

And he leaves.

  
At the end of the week Cottia waltzes into his office.

“Well, I’m glad that’s over,” she announces, sighing dramatically.

“Ah, you’re referring to our very important and intellectually invigorating work moulding the minds of the young,” Marcus says, not looking up from his computer screen.

“Whatever. I’m just in it for the money. And the sex. Obviously.”

“Ah yes, the glamorous life of an academic. Rock’n’roll.”

“Speaking of sex…” Cottia starts, before Marcus shoots her a warning sideways look. “Relax! I come in peace. I just… are you okay? You seem a little…subdued. You know, not your normal crazy party-time self.”

“I’m fine. I’m going to try and get the book wrapped up over the vacation. I’ve advertised for a RA to help me with it and everything.”

Cottia claps her hands together in glee. “Does this mean I get to read the whole thing? Not just the little drips and drabs you want my opinion on?”

“The whole thing,” Marcus repeats dryly.

“It’s like the best Christmas present ever! Better than a puppy!”

“Cottia,” Marcus admonishes gently. “You don’t have to pretend to be excited for my benefit. It’s just a book. A boring, academic book about the Roman army in Great Britain. That’s taken me _9 years_ , and a relocation across the Atlantic, to meticulously research. Meticulously research every tiny, boring detail.”

  
“I _am_ excited, M. And it’s not _just_ a book. It’s your book. To set the record straight. I know how important that is to you. And it will be important to the academic community as well. It’s going to be the definitive work!”

Marcus shrugs. “Hmmmm. You know no one will buy it. No one will probably even read it.”

“You know they will,” Cottia replies.

“Yeah, well. Maybe that’s what I’m even more afraid of,” Marcus says quietly.

“Hey,” Cottia puts a hand on his arm. “They’ll read it, and they’ll like it, because it’s good, and because, as you said, you’ve meticulously researched every tiny detail.”

“People will think I’m mad. I think I’m mad half the time.”

“Well, I don’t. I think it’s a brave thing you’re doing, Marcus Aquila.”

Marcus looks up and meets Cottia’s warm, honest eyes. “Thanks Cottia,” he says.

“Well, I hope it cheers you up,” she says briskly. “You aren’t exactly a barrel of laughs at the best of times, but this moping around like a kicked puppy is unbearable. In the meantime, let’s go for illicit lunchtime drinks with the rest of our esteemed colleagues. Yes?”

Marcus sighs. “Yes, yes. Okay.” Drinking certainly has its appeal at the moment. He knows it’s a cliché but it takes away from…the empty feeling. The feeling of… _‘it’s nothing’_. ‘ _He knows it’s nothing’._ The whiskey sour helps dilute the bittersweet of Esca’s goodbye kiss.

Late in the afternoon, there is a knock on the door of his office. Marcus is still feeling warm and languid from the three glasses of red wine he had with lunch.

“Mmmmhmmmm,” he says, and Esca sticks his tousled bronze and dirtygolden head round the door. The surprise is sharp and hard, snapping through Marcus’ wine-induced fuzz, like fumbling behind the sofa for lost keys and instead finding a mousetrap. “Esca.”

“Oh, hey,” Esca says. He looks at Marcus hesitantly and moistens his lips. “So, um, I saw your advertisement for a research assistant to help you out over the next month with editing and fact checking? I’ve filled in the application.” He proffers a neatly stapled bunch of pages to Marcus.

“Oh!” Marcus replies, unable to mask his surprise. “Well, great. Only I thought maybe one of the grad students would… Do you not want to go home over the vacation?”

Esca grimaces. “Christmas isn’t exactly a fun time for me,” he says wryly, “You know, what with having no family and all. I thought us orphans could stick together, like a Charles Dickens novel.”

“Right,” Marcus feels heavy, slow, mute. He wishes he hadn’t drunk so much wine. He wishes just being around Esca didn’t make him feel like he’d drunk a whole case of the stuff.

“So…,” Esca says, after an awkward pause, “what exactly is it? I mean, I know it’s research on the Roman army in Britain, but what’s the book about exactly?”

“I’m kind of…uh…rewriting my dad’s work. You know…” Marcus trails off. “That sounds nuts, doesn’t it?”

“No,” Esca says slowly, “no. I can see why you’d want to do that. God knows if I could undo some of my Dad’s mistakes… well…” He trails off, rubbing at the back of his hair. “I mean, if I could undo some of my mistakes…” And here he looks meaningfully at Marcus. _Me. A mistake. Of course_.

“Sure, well, I’ll have to have a look over the applications, but…if the quality of your work is anything to go by, then I think you’d be very suitable for the position,” Marcus says, trying to sound rational, measured. And it’s not a lie. But neither is the way his pulse has sped up or his breath feels suddenly thick in his throat. Esca and him. Working. Together. Alone.

[Part Three](http://pouxin.livejournal.com/1318.html)


	3. Petting Teacher</p>

_  
**Petting Teacher (3/4) | Marcus/Esca | NC-17**   
_   


**Title:** Petting Teacher

 **Rating:** NC-17

 **Pairing** Marcus/Esca

Esca and Marcus have been working together for a week. Marcus is having Esca cross-reference sources, something he feels bad about, even though Esca’s being paid for it. It’s boring work. Nobody else should have to bear the burden of his obsessive quest for objective historical truth. He has said as much to Esca, who just smiles and shrugs. “It’s Okay Marcus, I like it. I like the exactness of it.” They often work side by side, in Marcus’ office or in the library. It’s a constant battle not to get distracted by Esca’s fine, fluting cheekbones, the proud jut of his chin, the soft sweep of his dark lashes, the way he distractedly chews at his thumb nail when he’s concentrating, drawing attention to the taut bow of his lips, which then part, hot blossoms, as Esca slides his thumb…  
  
“Oh, shit,” Esca says suddenly. “Sorry, I’ve got to run. I totally didn’t notice the time.”

Shaken from his erotic reverie, and hoping Esca hasn’t caught him staring, Marcus looks briefly at his watch; 6:30.

“Why?” he asks before he can stop himself. “Hot date?” He groans inwardly. He sounds like Esca’s uncle. His kindly, antiquated uncle. His masochistic uncle. The idea of Esca on any kind of date, hot or otherwise, makes Marcus feel panicked and smothered, like being buried alive.

Esca looks at him quizzically. “No,” he says, “I’ve got a shift starting at work.”

“I thought this was work?” Marcus says.

“This is one work,” Esca responds, “I have many works. Research Assistant extraordinaire. Tutor. Waiter. Bar slave.”

“Huh. You’re clearly a glutton for punishment.”

“Well,” Esca says archly, “somebody needs to pay the bills. I mean, I have the scholarship and my student loan and everything, but that just covers tuition fees and rent. It doesn’t cover everything else. Frivolous things like food and books.”

“Your dad…must have had money,” Marcus says awkwardly. Esca gives him a long look, as if he is trying to figure out whether Marcus is being cruel or just stupid.

“Yeah,” he says finally. “Drugs money. Crime money. The state took all of that. Or…I don’t know… it’s tied up somewhere. Somewhere that definitely isn’t my bank balance.”

“Oh,” Marcus says, feeling foolish. “If this is…why you have problems with getting work done on time you should just say. People would understand. I can’t imagine how difficult it would be to pay your way through university, all by yourself with no help at all from parents. I honestly can’t.”

“It’s not just that, you know,” Esca says after a while, his mouth a thin line. “That’s not the only reason why I haven’t handed in much work. I… It’s… The feeling when someone is judging you, ‘that’s not good enough, this is good, this is bad, you try hard but you are not quite there’. People’s eyes on you, your work. I don’t like it. I promised myself a long time ago I wouldn’t put myself in that position ever again. You know, vulnerable like that.”

Marcus is surprised by his honesty. “It’s a position I’m familiar with,” he says dryly. “But, Esca, you know it’s not really like that. Your tutors just genuinely want you to be the best you can be, by offering, you know, constructive criticism…”

“Yeah, I know, I know how it works, I’m not an idiot,” Esca cuts him off, but his expression is amused, almost fond. “I realize all that Marcus. I’m just saying how it makes me feel. It’s like a block. I sit down at my desk and turn on the computer and then…nothing. I have all these things in my head, things to say, but I can’t… I can’t…” He shrugs helplessly.

“Well, if it helps at all, I think you’re pretty much a genius. Your work is…brilliant,” Marcus mumbles, feeling the beginnings of a blush stealthily creeping up his neck.

“I bet you say that to all your students,” Esca teases.  
 _  
No, just you, just wonderful you._

  
Marcus takes Esca down to the stacks to have a look at some rare manuscripts detailing the building of Hadrian’s wall. It’s like a secret world, through the rabbit hole. Coming down here Marcus always feels like the library has rolled over onto its back for him, exposing its soft, white underbelly. Even the constant clattering and chugging of the conveyors which ferry the books to and from the reception point doesn’t bother him. The smell of knowledge is heavy in the air, a dry, fusty smell, yet at the same time, rich and dark and plump, as strong and vital as soil.

“I didn’t know people were even allowed down here,” Esca says, trying not to look impressed.

“I’m not just ‘people’,” Marcus responds, “I’m a man with connections. Very important library connections. I can take you to all the best places.”

“Hm,” Esca looks amused. They walk in silence through the tightly packed shelves, under the glow of the artificial lighting. Esca occasionally slows to peer at some of the rows and rows of books and manuscript boxes. “You know because it’s a copyright library they have to have every publication that’s ever been published in the UK? So you get all these sweaty, cardigan-wearing ‘social anthropologists’ coming to look at the history of erotica, which is basically just flicking through ancient copies of Penthouse from the 1980s.”

“Ah,” says Marcus, “reminds me of my misspent youth.”

Esca gives him a sidelong, slightly troubled look. “You are gay, right?” he asks him quickly. Marcus raises his eyebrows at the unexpectedness of the question.

“I thought you had that figured out from day one?” he asks, surprised.

“Well, yeah,” Esca looks embarrassed, possibly for the first time ever, and Marcus tries to stop his mouth quirking with amusement.

“Mostly,” Marcus adds, “I mean, there have been some women too, when I was a teenager. What about you?”

“I didn’t get much access to girls as a teenager,” Esca jokes. “Being locked up tends to put a damper on your sex life.”

“Right, so your sexuality is more a matter of convenience then?” Marcus jokes.

“No,” Esca meets his eyes with a slow, dark look that makes Marcus’ stomach tighten and clench. “I wouldn’t say that. I wouldn’t say that at all.”

It’s a look that makes Marcus wants to grab him, bunch his fingers in Esca’s jacket and push him up against the dusty shelves, hard, here, in the creaking heart of the library, in its secret passageways where no one ever comes, with the dull gleam of the fluorescent lights and the smell of dry paper, dank ink, buttery leather; he wants to rub his thumbs along the slant of Esca’s cheeks and bite at his mouth. He wants to learn Esca, chapter and verse, by heart, here among the books, to know him, to trace his lines with fingers and tongue and cock. But then there are other thoughts: _we’re too different, you’re too nice, too sweet._ So Marcus does none of these things.

  
It’s the day before the university shuts for Christmas, and Marcus and Esca are waiting for the driving, freezing rain to let up before they make the dash from the library to the department building. Marcus tries not to think of how quickly he could have covered the ground 10 years ago. His leg doesn’t like the cold, it creaks and rumbles in protest every morning, settling into a tight knot that even half an hour in the sauna at the gym can’t undo. The knots of his leg, the knots of his heart. He glances across at Esca who is pulling on a cigarette, eyes narrowed against the smoke, shoulders hunched from the cold.

“Are you heading ho…” Marcus stops himself. “I mean, are you heading out of town tonight?”

Esca exhales cloudily into the crisp, wet air and shrugs.

“I haven’t really thought about it. Maybe.”

“You could spend Christmas with me and my uncle,” Marcus says, then adding quickly, “I mean, if you haven’t got anything else planned.” He coughs, embarrassed.

“Isn’t that against your student/teacher protocol?” Esca asks him gently, smiling slightly.

“I think that went out the window quite some time ago, wouldn’t you say?”

Esca chuckles, a low, lovely sound. “Right, well, I reckon we should chance it. The rain’s easing off a bit.”

“Okay.”

It’s a mistake. No sooner have they left the protective overhang of the library roof than the rain renews its assault with a vengeance: sharp, needling, freezing. Using his coat as a makeshift, and largely useless, umbrella Marcus tries to keep up with Esca, but his leg refuses to cooperate, sending a hot spasm of pain up towards Marcus’ gut, even as the rest of his skin puckers and retreats with the cold. When he finally reaches the entrance to the department building, Esca is already inside, laughing, his eyes bright and alive.

“Shit!” he grins, shaking his head like a dog. His hair is dark brown from the wet. It looks soft. “I’m soaked through.”

“I’ve got some spare clothes in my office,” Marcus offers, “gym kit and stuff.” His own clothes are icy heavy against his skin, and he knows he needs to get his wet jeans off before his leg cramps even further. Unlocking the door to his office, not even bothering to turn the lights on, Marcus quickly tugs the soaking t-shirt up over his head, depositing it in a damp heap on the floor, then goes to unbutton his jeans. He pauses momentarily as he starts to ease them down his thighs, suddenly remembering the mottled, misshapen mess of his ruined leg, the angry scar, always so tight and burning. But he can hardly not finish taking his pants off now he’s started. He slides his eyes quickly across to Esca, suddenly embarrassed, only to find Esca watching him with something close to awe, lips slightly parted, colour high in his cheeks.

“Esca?” It’s half a statement, half a question.

“Ha!” now Esca looks embarrassed. “Well, huh,” he clears his throat, then grins at Marcus impishly, still blushing. “What am I meant to do? You’re giving me a little strip tease. I’m not going to not look. Besides, you’re pretty, uh, easy on the eye.”

Marcus thinks of Liathan, that day they were kissing in the lecture, his lithe darkness, his snaky hips. Then his own bulk; then briefly of his football playing days, when he was strong and hard and…but he doesn’t let himself think more about that.

“I’m hardly your type,” he says dryly, reaching quickly for a clean, dry shirt from the back of his door.

Esca looks at him, askance. “Oh come on Marcus, you’re everyone’s type.”

Marcus shrugs the shirt on quickly. “Well…with…you know…” Marcus gestures down at his leg, knowing it’s the first time Esca’s seen it.

“Ah, yes, the infamous war wound,” Esca says, mocking but gentle, at the point of contact, gentle. “Yeah, because no one likes a hero. You’re totally right. Scars obtained through bravery above and beyond the call of duty totally don’t do it for me. I prefer my men to be cowards.”

 _My men.  
_  
If only he knew how badly Marcus wants to be his man.

Marcus pauses, shirt still half unbuttoned. “Hmmm, well. I’m a bit different from my army days. It’s difficult to keep yourself in shape when you can barely run 500 yards without keeling over in agony.” He tries to keep the bitterness out of his voice, but fails. This is a luxury he rarely allows himself these days. Vanity.

“Yeah, I can see how you’ve let yourself go to seed.” Esca’s eyes are suddenly hot on him, like a hundred warm tongues lapping at his skin. “From the looks of it you only go to the gym now – what? – like, once a day.” He gives the taught expanse of stomach still visible under Marcus’ half buttoned shirt a slow, appreciative once-over.

“I’ve gotten too big,” Marcus mutters awkwardly. Is Esca flirting with him? He feels suddenly out of his depth, unsure of himself, of Esca.

“I have noticed how… _big_ you are.”

Then Esca’s eyes are on the front of his briefs, and Marcus is acutely aware that he is still half dressed and has the beginnings of an erection, Esca’s hot eyes, the tight bow of his mouth saying all the right things. He turns his back quickly, fishing for his tracksuit bottoms out of his open gym bag.

“Hmmmm.” He can hear the smile in Esca’s voice. “You’re cute when you’re being bashful.”

 _Cute?_ Definitely flirting. But then he can hear in his mind all the other things Esca has said: _I’m not remotely interested in you_ ; _\- I like you Esca – Well, you shouldn’t. There’s no point_.

“So, is there a shirt for me?”

“Sure,” as Marcus digs it out of the gym bag he can hear the sound of Esca peeling off his own wet top. This is unbearable. He can’t look. He has to look. “Here.” He turns. In the dim amber glow of the streetlights coming through the window Esca’s body looks like it’s carved out of marble, surprisingly chiseled and strong, pale, lithe, perfect. His tattoo looks incredible. He looks primal, fierce.

“Thanks.”

A fine line of auburnish hair snakes down the length of his tight, gold stomach towards his jeans, slung low on his hips. Marcus can hardly drag his eyes away from the fluting wings of muscle that dip alongside Esca’s flat belly towards his crotch. He swallows heavily and forces himself to look away.

Esca grins at him. “Although I don’t know if it will fit. I mean, you’re put together like an Abercrombie & Fitch model.”

Marcus doesn’t know what to say. What can he say? _Perfect, you’re perfect, everything, your perfect skin_. Esca pulls the t-shirt over his head, and for a minute Marcus can’t decide what he likes the look of better, Esca naked, Esca in _his_ clothes. Then he thinks of the way the shadows played along the dips and hallows of the valleys of Esca’s ribs, the graceful angles of clavicle, sternum, his surprisingly broad shoulders, his unexpectedly narrow waist. Naked, definitely.

The tattered neck of the t-shirt is lose on Esca, and as he shifts it slips down, giving tantalizing glimpses of delicate, vaulted collarbone. “Sorry it’s a ratty old gym one,” Marcus mumbles, indicating the t-shirt.

“Hey, I’m not complaining, it’s dry.” Esca smiles, pinching some of the cotton between two fingers and rubbing appreciatively. “Mmm, it smells of you.”

“Ah, you mean gym sweat and bag stagnation,” Marcus jokes, embarrassed.

“No,” Esca says, meeting his eyes, slowly, “just you.”

Marcus wets his lips, and opens his mouth, but finds he has nothing to say.

“And now I smell of you.”

A small soft sound escapes Marcus, a tiny exhalation of breath. Esca gives a half smile, and turns away from Marcus, suddenly busying himself with collecting up their soaking wet clothes from the floor. Marcus bends down alongside him to help, feeling the muscles of his damaged leg twitch and flicker with the strain.  
 _  
And now I smell of you._

He reaches out his hand, trying to brush it against the back of Esca’s.

“You know I killed someone, right?”

Marcus goes very still. “Something like that.”

Esca stands up suddenly, and turns to face the window of the office, so Marcus can only see the side of his face in the dim gleam of the streetlamps, tight and drawn, moving in and out of shadow.

“It was an accident. Well, it was and it wasn’t. I was…stupid, young, angry. I was being fostered by this old couple; they just wanted the cash really, they didn’t give a shit where I was, who I was with, what I was doing. And…you know, there were a bunch of us. A gang, I guess. It felt like family again, in some stupid sort of way. Anyway, we used to talk pretty big, you know, about the people who killed my parents, where they were now, how we would find them, what we would do to them. One of the guys…one of the guys who had been involved, he owned a betting shop, and so one night we went and poured petrol through the letterbox and set it on fire.” Esca stops talking for a while, his face impassive, distant.

“The weirdest thing is, even now I remember how brilliant I felt. Brilliant and awful and powerful. Watching that place go up in flames, it was one of the most beautiful and terrifying things. It was all anger and joy. You know: _look on my works ye mighty and despair_. But I was just a kid. And it was just a shitty betting shop.” This time the silence goes on so long Marcus has to bite his lip to stop himself from saying anything. “Anyway, turns out this guy’s family lived above the shop. You know, we didn’t even think... And...uh… well, they mostly got out. But he had a son… Well….” Esca rubs at his face, at his hair. “I was lucky, you know, I was only 14, and there were a group of us, and a lot of the others were much better known to the police, for nicking cars and drugs and stuff, than me, so the judge went harder on them. They didn’t… none of them told the police about the link between me and that guy so… They never figured out we’d been planning it, _I’d_ been planning it. They thought it was just kids, you know… Having some ‘fun’. I got three years in the YO. They didn’t even give me manslaughter. Just arson with malicious intent. I mean, my solicitor originally thought I might be looking at murder, but then he was all, ah, you know, ‘It’s a shop, it’s not _reasonably foreseeable_ my client knew anyone was living there’. I don’t know. Looking at it now it seems pretty foreseeable to me. Huh. And you know, the other weird thing, even then a whole lot of my…friends…they were like, ‘Well, you showed him Esca,’ you know, like it was okay, like that was the way things were in the world. I don’t know. The temptation to believe that was frightening.” He looks at Marcus for the first time since starting to speak. “I don’t believe that, you know.”

“I know.”

“I guess he probably died from the smoke inhalation, whilst he was asleep. That’s what they said in court. But…how can they ever really know? I think about what it would be like sometimes, you know, to burn alive, to…”

“Esca,” Marcus puts a hand on his arm.

“Huh, well. That’s why… you know that debate you made us do at the beginning of term. On Pyrrhic victories? Not hurting people is always more important than being right, or revenge, or… Anyway, YO kind of saved me in a way. There was no way I was carrying on like I had been before. So I did my GCSEs, started on my A-Levels. And it turns out I’m kind of a genius, so…” he smiles, a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes, and shrugs. “They released me a year early because of that. Hail to the prodigal. The system loves a success story.”

They stand in silence for a while.

“Is this why… you know…with me and you…,” Marcus begins

“Look, I’ve mostly dealt with it okay. But I know what I am. I know what I can and can’t be. For myself. For you.”

“Esca, you know I’ve killed people too, right? In the army.”

“That’s totally different.”

“Like you said, it is and it isn’t. Not so different that we don’t devote a whole seminar group to discussing the history of murder by the state.”

“Marcus,” Esca says wearily. “I know what you’re going to say. I know you think we’re the same, but we’re not. I’m.. I’m a _bad_ person. I don’t… I can’t handle… When I’m with you I feel… so inadequate.”  
 _  
I feel inadequate,_ Marcus thinks, _I feel inadequate, broken, not good enough, every moment of my life._ He feels the twisted iron in his soul sing to touch Esca, to unlock itself, to slip into place. He reaches his hands out and places them gently on Esca’s shoulders, and for a minute their eyes meet, and for a minute Marcus feels everything spring back into the perfection of his youth, his heart feels glad, his chest light, his leg strong. Then Esca shrugs his hands away, and turns.

“Haven’t we gone beyond this Esca?” Marcus asks desperately.

“We’ll never get _beyond it_ , Marcus. It’s who we are.”

“If it’s just…that you’re not…you know, attracted to me…” Marcus begins lamely.

Esca looks at him sideways and sighs. “It’s complicated,” he says, “too complicated.” He is silent for a few seconds. “Look, Marcus, I’d better go.”

“Okay,” Marcus says, dully.

“I’ll, um… I’ll give you a ring after Christmas to sort out…” he gesticulates at the manuscript lying on Marcus’ desk.

“Right.”

“Well, have a good Christmas,” he says quietly.

“You too.”

Esca looks at him again for one long moment, and the sleet of his eyes looks soft and wet and fragile, like fresh snow. It’s a look a bit like…love…but it is probably just the dark of the room and the way the light from the street reflects on the angles of his brows, because a moment later he turns and is gone.

Alone in his dark office, Marcus trails his fingers slowly along the spines of his books, tidy on their shelves. He picks up and restacks the manuscript, before sitting it back down neatly on his desk. Opening the desk drawer, he carefully takes out ‘ _Finding the Eagle: The Ninth Legion in Britain_ ’ by F.M Aquila and places it next to his own thick bundle of pages. He removes the collection of newspaper clippings from the fly cover and reads them again, their well known rhythms both hurting and soothing; _this is how my pain feels, this is what it looks like, this is how it sounds_. ‘Disgraced’, ‘suicide’, ‘smash’, ‘drowned’, ‘sources say the once much-lauded academic couldn’t bear the shame’, ‘leaves one son’. He picks up the Silver Star from the back of the drawer, absently thumbing the spikes of its well worn ridges, its faded ribbon, before placing it down on the desk. He writes a quick post-it note to Cottia, for when she inevitably drops into the office after the Christmas vacation, and sticks it to the first page of his papers. ‘Read away!’ Then he adds ‘Thanks C for all your help with this. I couldn’t have done it without you. And now it is done. Love always, M.’ He props his cane up by the side of the desk, and leaves the office, not bothering to lock the door.

[Part Four](http://pouxin.livejournal.com/1757.html)


	4. Petting Teacher</p>

_  
**Petting Teacher (4/4) | Marcus/Esca | NC-17**   
_   


**Title:** Petting Teacher

 **Rating:** NC-17

 **Pairing** Marcus/Esca

Marcus is pacing back and forth across the bottom of the dark, empty cavern of the lecture theatre. It helps him think, the steady pain in his leg keeping his mind focused, sharp. Occasionally he absently sends one hand down to feel along the ridges and indents of the scar through the thin cotton of his gym pants. He thinks about the marines, how it gave him focus when he was lost, how it gathered him up into something bigger than him, bigger than his father, bigger than his sorrow. It was the same, in a way, with the book. And now there is nothing bigger than him, just him, just the enormous weight of his anger, his loneliness, his grief. His melancholy, his desire for the things he cannot have… _Esca._ He is so lost in thought, the sudden angry sound of the door banging open makes him jump. He looks up in surprise.

“Esca?” It almost doesn’t look like Esca, his face is pale and intense, his eyes wild.

“Marcusjesuschrist!” It all comes out as one word.

“What’s wrong?”

“Fuck – Marcus! I thought… I thought….” Esca places his hands to the sides of his head and breathes deeply. His eyes don’t leave Marcus’.

“What?”

“I thought… I thought you’d… I came back to say… to say that… And then that bloody book by your dad, and the manuscript, and that note to Dr. Cub, and the cane…”

“What?” Marcus asks again, genuinely perplexed.

“And the _war medal_? And then all those newspaper articles about your dad’s suicide? I went into your office to find you and I… I thought…I thought I’d lost you…” Esca trails off again, his face twitching with emotion.  
 _  
Oh.  
_  
“Esca. You know I would never, _ever_ do something that stupid. I mean, yeah, I thought about it after the accident with my leg, and being discharged, you know, but if my dad’s death taught me anything it’s that…”

But he doesn’t say anymore, because Esca is suddenly half running down the steps of the lecture theatre towards him. Then Esca is in his arms, and Esca is kissing him. It’s nothing like the cool, practiced kisses Esca has given him before. Esca kisses him messily, and ardently, hot and wet, teeth clashing, faces mashing awkwardly. This kiss is _real_.

Part of Marcus thinks he shouldn’t do this. But part of him knows he could never stop. Esca’s whole body feels electric, surrounded by a kind of warm, static charge. It shoots along Marcus’ nerve endings, shocks, almost like pain, kick-starting feelings he had forgotten he could ever have. His hands are cupping Esca’s face, in his hair. Esca’s hands are greedy, everywhere, the damp arch of his back under his shirt, then clutching at his ass, then one cool palm slides round to stroke along Marcus’ stomach. Marcus can feel the thunder of Esca’s heart pressed against his own.

“Marcus –” Esca starts, his voice low and raspy.

“Shhhh,” Marcus says, pressing his thumb tight enough against Esca’s lips to force him to turn his head, offering Marcus the delicate nook of his jaw. For once talking is the last thing he wants to do. He just wants to be here, now, with Esca. Holding Esca’s neck taut he buries his face in the hollow, breathing in heavily, then slides his mouth against Esca’s skin. Esca tastes like rain. He can feel Esca’s pulse leap madly against his tongue, feel his hardness through his still damp jeans, pressed against Marcus’ thigh. _Esca_. This is the best moment, the one to last forever.

Esca nips at the blunt tip of Marcus’ thumb, hard enough to make him slide it away from his mouth, hard enough to make his cock thud dizzyingly. “Marcus… I’m not… I can’t…. I don’t want…”

“Just, shhhhh.” Marcus kisses him again, hard. In another situation he would be amused that the normally cool and aloof Esca can’t seem to stop speaking, but now he just wants him quiet, kissing, feeling.

Esca pulls away from Marcus’ lips, but his hips shimmy, grinding his cock against Marcus’ hip, as if he can’t help himself. “I just… I wanted to be good enough for you, I wanted that so badly.”

“Esca.” Marcus feels heavy, inarticulate. He just wants to touch Esca, to be close to him, to feel him. “You’re… _everything_.”

Esca carries on as if he hasn’t heard him, hasn’t understood him. “I mean _God_. Have you any idea? It’s not just that you, well, I mean, you look like you do. And you’re clever, I mean you’re a fucking doctor for Christ’s sake. It’s that you’re so good. You’re so clean and uncomplicated – you have this plan, with your book and your dad and everything, to make things _right_ , you know what you want, you know how you want to be. And I’m such a mess, I’m such a fuck-up, I’m just… not a good person, not at all. And I tried to bribe you, I offered you… you know, I offered to fuck you so you’d…with the extension and everything. And even after that you stuck up for me. And then I was such a shit to you in the car park because I felt like I’d made you compromise yourself, made you be lesser than you are. I thought I was angry with you, but I was angry with me. I hate that – I have to break everything that’s good, everything I care about… I mean, every time I think about it I feel so ashamed, I can’t believe I did that, and to you.”

“Esca, it doesn’t matter, none of it matters,” Marcus says, sliding his thumb roughly along Esca’s high cheekbone.

“Marcus, it does matter. I hate… I feel out of control… how much I want this to be _not about fucking._ That’s why I tried so hard to fuck you. To make it be about fucking. To pretend that’s all it was. But it’s not. That’s not what you are to me at all _._ ”

“Esca, you’re not…” Marcus starts, but then he feels fear clench at his heart with its jagged fist. “The way I feel about you, it’s…” He runs his palms gently down Esca’s arms. “But I understand if you don’t want _me._ Like that. I know I’m not…much. _”_

“Marcus.” Esca’s grey eyes are soft, bright. He lets himself relax a little into Marcus’ arms, and Marcus drops his head to rest it on top of Esca’s shoulder. “Anyone would want you. You’re the most… I mean, I know I have my moments, but you’re gorgeous. Matinee idol gorgeous.”

“ _You’re_ gorgeous,” Marcus murmurs hotly, dragging his lips against Esca’s throat, smelling the sharp citrus tang of his skin, “you’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever known.” Esca lets his head drop back, baring his neck further, his eyes going heavy. “Inside and out. Everything.” Again, he thinks maybe he should stop kissing Esca, but he can’t. He isn’t sure this is what Esca wants, but it is what he wants…so…badly. He draws back, almost shaking with the need not to.

Then Esca’s hands are in his hair, pulling sharply, scratching at his scalp. “Marcus, put your mouth on me. Again.”

“Is that what you… _want_?”

“I want you. Inside and out. Everything.” Esca says, repeating Marcus’ own words back to him, and the way he speaks, it’s like a confession, making something inside Marcus pull tight with anticipation for what it means.

Marcus returns his lips to Esca’s neck, kiss-chasing the pulse he finds there, following it to the hollow where his throat meets his shoulder, teeth teasing at the soft skin, smelling himself on Esca’s t-shirt.

Esca moans, and fists a hand against Marcus’ shirt, twisting blindly. He pulls Marcus’ head level with his, breathing heavily. “Should we, uh, should we go somewhere else?” he asks, cheeks flushed, lips bruised.

“No, here,” Marcus says, backing Esca onto the desk, “It always made me crazy when you’d threaten to come onto me like this.”

“Oh!” Esca says. He looks delighted. “Me too.” He kisses Marcus again, grappling with the buttons of his shirt, sliding a hand in to explore the weave of muscle that lays over Marcus’ ribs. The backs of his knuckles rub against the hard, damp tip of Marcus’ cock where it strains against the worn cotton of his gym pants and Marcus groans. He grabs at Esca’s t-shirt, struggling to pull it up over his head. The collar gets stuck on his nose and Esca laughs, but he stops laughing when Marcus pulls the cotton taut over his eyes, and kisses at him savagely, then bites at his neck, then spears his tongue over one brown nipple.

“Huh,” he breathes, allowing himself to be blindly pushed against the edge of the desk, as Marcus works his other hand over Esca’s own hard cock through the thick denim of his jeans. Esca manages to wiggle free of Marcus’ grip enough to finish tugging the t-shirt off, and then presses himself flush against Marcus, skin to skin, their height difference meaning Marcus can feel the thick ridge of his cock pressing against the soft skin of Esca’s belly. Esca hooks his fingers into the elastic waistband of Marcus’ pants and tugs.

“Take these off, I want to see you.” Somewhere there is the scar, jagged and ugly, but here there is only Esca’s warm eyes, his cool, clutching hands, his bitten off exhalations of breath, so Marcus lets Esca pull harder on the jogging bottoms, until they slide down his thick, furred thighs. Esca kisses him again, sliding his tongue along the edge of Marcus’ lips. He lets the very tips of his fingers ghost against the plump head of Marcus’ cock, already sticky with precome, where it is sliding its way out of the gap in his briefs. “These too,” Esca breathes. Marcus steps back a little and pulls down his boxers, palming himself briefly as he does so.

Esca’s eyes go wide and dark. “Do that again,” he says.

“Do what again?”

“Touch yourself,” Esca’s eyes run quickly from Marcus’ face to his cock, then back again. He licks his lips. “I used to think about it, you know. A lot. You touching yourself, and thinking about me. Did you use to think about me? When you jacked yourself off?”

Marcus’ mouth is dry. “Yes.” He manages. Then he smiles weakly, and shrugs, “well, you know, just a bit.” He’s trying for teasing, but his voice sounds too breathy, too ragged.

“What did you use to think about?”

“Ah… you know. You. Bent over the desk here. Opening for me. Begging me for it,” Marcus says thickly.

Esca smiles approvingly. “Yeah? I used to think about that too. Do you know what else I used to think about?” he asks.

“Uh?” Marcus manages, eyes on Esca’s normally impassive face, now animated with desire. Esca. Thinking about him. Thinking about fucking him, being fucked by him. He isn’t sure what’s going to blow first, his mind or his cock.

“Sucking you off here, at your desk. On my hands and knees. In the lecture hall.”

He places a cool palm flat on Marcus’ warm, flushed chest, pushing him gently back round the desk towards the chair. “It made me kind of insane when you kept turning me down you know. I used to watch you, in lectures, and all I could think about was you sat here, and me under the desk, your cock in my mouth, and no one would know that I was there, you know…”

“Yeah,” says Marcus. “ _Yeah_.” He allows Esca to push him down on to the chair, and then watches as Esca sinks slowly to his knees, his steely eyes soft and unfocused. He knee walks backwards, further under the desk, pulling the chair with him, so Marcus can barely see him in the dark lecture hall, just the top of his bronze head, lit only by the silvery moon and golden streetlamps. But he can feel Esca’s firm hands on his thighs, easing them apart, and then the warm pulse of his breath on the straining length of his cock. Marcus moans in anticipation, tilting his head back and gripping hard at the sides of the chair, as he feels the first broad swipe of Esca’s tongue, licking a hot, wet stripe up Marcus’ dick. Esca nips at the soft skin of Marcus’ inner thighs, then nuzzles into his balls, mouthing at them damply, flickering his tongue over the taut, swollen skin. Marcus lets out another groan, deep and guttural, feeling Esca’s hand close around the base of his cock and his tongue feather over the sensitive head, then swirl down over it in practiced circles.

Esca pulls off a little. “Quiet,” he whispers darkly, “everyone is watching.”

Marcus is slightly alarmed by the low, filthy pulse of desire this sends sparking through him, and has to bite his lip to stop himself from moaning again, as he feels his cock push against the petulant bow of Esca’s lips before being sucked, hard, long, all the way into Esca’s silky heat. Esca rakes a hand across his belly, where his muscles have pulled tight with arousal. Then he trails his fingers lower to explore the sensitive skin underneath Marcus’ balls. He moves to lick frantically at the side of Marcus’ cock, the edge of his tongue moving to tease at the slit, then engulfs him for a few more long strokes down his throat.

“Esca,” Marcus’ voice has roughened to a low growl, “If you keep that up any longer, _I_ won’t be able to.” Marcus can feel Esca smile around his dick, then he pulls off again, leaving it to smack wetly against Marcus’ stomach. His head emerges from under the desk, hair mussed, lips dark and swollen, eyes smug.

“Mmp,” Marcus says, making an inarticulate sound of desire, and he grabs Esca under the armpits, almost hauling him out from under the desk, and then settling him on it so their faces are level, and Marcus can stand between Esca’s spread thighs.

Marcus kisses Esca long and hard, enjoying the taste of himself on Esca’s tongue, his fingers busying themselves with the buttons of Esca’s fly. He ruts himself lazily against the roughness of the denim, enjoying the almost painful pleasure of the material against his naked, sensitized cock. He pulls at Esca’s jeans, and Esca wriggles and raises his hips, helping Marcus shimmy them down his legs. Marcus reaches into Esca’s boxers, finding his dick, both hard and soft, tusk in velvet. Esca pants into his mouth, as Marcus eases his boxers down too. Esca’s cock is long and elegant, with a pretty flared head, hard and red with need. Marcus wraps a strong, warm hand round it, rubbing his thumb roughly over the top.

Esca breaks off from their kiss to look down at where they are touching, his cock, Marcus’ hand. “Shit, Marcus, your hands are enormous,” he breathes.

Marcus smiles, and exhales against Esca’s ear. “ _Or_ …,” he starts teasingly, and Esca laughs.

“Hey, fuck you,” he retorts gently, and bites at Marcus’ jaw, “there is _nothing_ wrong with my cock.” He jerks it up hard into Marcus grip, and he is forced to agree. There is nothing wrong with it whatsoever, it’s perfect, just like the rest of Esca. He spreads his fingers wider, and then wraps them around the both of them, gently pulling, allowing them to rub and slide together. “Mmmm,” Esca pants, kissing Marcus again, sloppy, breathing hard. “I want to… have you got anything?”

“Oh, no,” Marcus feels momentarily dismayed, realizing he came to the lecture hall only in his spare shirt and his track pants. His wallet is in his jeans back in the office.

“I’ve got…mmmm,” Esca says, kissing Marcus again, raking at his back, squeezing his ass. “I’ve got…condom…in my jeans, hang on.” He scooches off the side of the desk, ducking down between Marcus’ spread legs, tonguing briefly at his taut, furry balls, making Marcus shudder. He rummages in his jeans pocket, emerging triumphant with the shiny foil packet. “I haven’t got any…you know, lube though,” he says.

“Hmmmm,” Marcus takes the condom and drops it on the desk, then grasps Esca firmly by the shoulders, spinning him round so he is facing away from Marcus, towards the dark rows of the lecture hall. “Well, we’ll just have to improvise then, won’t we,” he says, and uses his good knee to nudge Esca’s legs apart, forcing him to lean forward against the desk for support. Ignoring the grumble of protest from his damaged leg he sinks to his knees, bringing his face level with the pale round peach of Esca’s fantastic dancer’s ass, high and firm. He rubs his face against each cheek, then bites the left one, hard enough to leave a hot pink scalloped mark on the smooth skin. Esca makes a noise somewhere between a sigh and a laugh, clenching his ass in surprise. Marcus pets him, then runs his thumb teasingly along the crease, and Esca exhales heavily and spreads his legs further, revealing the perfect pout of his hole. Marcus lets his tongue follow his thumb in a long, wet swipe, until he reaches Esca’s warm, pink centre, where he pauses, just dabbing, letting his tongue flirt with it. Then he stabs it inwards, sharply, licking round and up.

“Fuck,” Esca says, low and breathy. “Huh.” He grips tightly onto the edges of the desk, head hanging downwards, shoulder blades like wings, labouring, panting hard and choked as if he is being whipped. He is prettier than anything Marcus can imagine. Marcus bends his head back down again, letting his tongue slide back into Esca, curling it upwards, feeling Esca open and shiver around him. He tastes amazing, sweet and tangy, Esca.

“Oh. God.” Esca says raggedly as Marcus uses his wide, blunt fingers to hold Esca further open for him, licking and mouthing at Esca’s hole. Esca writhes on his tongue, rutting his erection against the rough edge of the desk. Marcus taps his thumb on Esca’s slick opening, watching it darken and blossom with pleasure. He sucks the thumb briefly, and then slides it in to Esca’s welcoming warmth, Esca breathing it in like a warm gust of air, smooth. He moves the thumb rhythmically in and out, feeling Esca catch and release around it, watching him wriggle and twist. Then he replaces it with two mouth-wet fingers, scissoring them gently, working Esca open. Adding a third finger, he beckons them upwards, feeling the hard press of Esca’s response. _Inside and out. Everything._

“Marcus,” Esca gasps, “please.”

With a jolt Marcus remembers his semi-slumber fantasies, Esca hot and wanton beneath him, _oh you like that do you? Say please_. The thought makes his balls pull and tingle and Marcus breathes deeply, trying to control himself, pulling back from Esca’s cool, lemony skin. Esca raises his head and looks down at Marcus over his shoulder, flushed and dreamy. “I’m ready. You’ve got me really wet.” He tugs at the tip of his cock for emphasis.

Marcus stands quickly, for once glad of the stab of pain from his leg, grateful for something to take the edge off how much he wants his cock in Esca, _now_ , wants to fuck up inside him, _now_ , wants to come, _now_. He reaches for the discarded condom packet, tearing at it with slippery fingers, then easing the sheath down over his hardness with slightly unsteady hands.

Esca looks back over his shoulder again, eyes never leaving Marcus’ cock, and he licks his lips, smiles. “Come on,” he breathes, his voice low and excited.

Marcus presses himself against Esca’s cool, muscular back, looping an arm around his waist, allowing his dick to nestle against Esca’s ass. He holds the base of his cock in one hand, and hesitantly presses it against Esca’s hole. It’s been a long time since Marcus tried this without lubricant – _pleasant flashback to army days, hot purple nights, hotter skin_ – well, to be honest, it’s been a long time since he had sex, period; and he doesn’t want to hurt Esca. But it’s hard when Esca is bucking against him, hot and moaning.

Marcus draws back slightly and rubs his cock along the crease of Esca’s ass.

“ _Marcus_ ,” Esca groans, exasperated.

“Say please,” Marcus says, dark and low, half amazed at his own audacity.

“Huh?” Esca stiffens a little in surprise, turning the side of his face to Marcus so he can see the proud lines of lips, cheekbone, brow in profile.

“Say please,” Marcus repeats, and Esca gives a small snort of laughter.

“I guess I deserve that. Okay, okay: please.”

Marcus presses just the tip of his dick against Esca’s hole. “Please what?”

He can see Esca smiling again in the dark. “Please will you fuck me?”

“I think you can do better than that,” and Marcus moves his hips forward, minutely, then pulls back, causing Esca to breathe in sharply.

“Please Marcus, please will you fuck me?” he asks again, but this time his voice is higher, tighter, less amused. Again, the tiniest movement of his hips. Esca tries to buck backwards, impale himself deeper onto Marcus, but Marcus steadies him with a large palm pressed flat to the small of his back. He reaches round and trails the backs of his knuckles over Esca’s straining cock.

“This time like you really mean it.”

“ _Please_. Please, Marcus, I want you inside me.”

This time he allows himself to go deeper, but still gentle, steady, slowly working Esca open, using his other hand to continue to tease the head of Esca’s cock. Esca breathes hard.

“Is that okay?”

“Yeah,” he says, quietly. “Yeah, just…slow. That’s…good.”

Marcus doesn’t think he could manage much more than slow at the moment, maddening as it is. Esca feels silky and succulent around him, and if he went any faster, he’s worried he would embarrass himself, like a schoolboy, too hot, too eager. Marcus bites at his lip.

Esca arches back, nuzzling the back of his head against Marcus’ collar bone, baring his throat. “Okay, yeah, harder now.”

“Hm,” Marcus acknowledges, and he presses forward, hard, twisting his hips almost savagely, feeling the bones of his pelvis come flush to Esca’s ass.

Esca pants, whimpers. “Yeah.”

Marcus starts to thrust into him, harder now, resting one warm hand loosely on the back of Esca’s neck where his hair curls in damp, coppery tendrils, and using the other to caress his jutting hip, his taut thigh.

Esca moves one of his hands from where he has been bracing himself against the desk, and attempts to slide it under him, to reach for his cock. “Can I…let me turn round,” he says.

“Let me turn round….?”

“Please.” Then as Marcus pulls out to let Esca turn to face him, Esca adds archly, “ _Sir_ ” making Marcus smile. “I wouldn’t have guessed you’d get off so much on this whole bossy thing.”

Marcus quirks an eyebrow at him. “Well, I _am_ your teacher Esca. We are in _my_ lecture hall. You _should_ be treating me with respect.”

Esca grins. “Okay, well, please, _Sir_ , please will you fuck me again?”

Marcus kisses him, gently, enjoying how Esca shivers and responds to the touch of his tongue, then using both arms to lever Esca’s thighs up off the edge of the desk, slides back into Esca’s smooth, clenching heat. Esca leans backwards, bracing himself on his elbows, his throat a long silvery column in the moonlight, his eyes narrowed to dark pools of sex. Again, Marcus is grateful for the increasing flares of pain coming from his leg; the sight of Esca, his creamy cool lunar beauty, all laid out in front of him, the contrast of his hard red penis, pulsing with every one of Marcus’ thrusts, is enough to make Marcus grit his teeth. He wants to come in Esca so hard it feels like pain. Despite his thigh’s protest, he hooks Esca’s leg over his good hip and uses his free hand to gently trail along the rigid underside of Esca’s cock.

Esca breathes out, unsteady. “Mmmmm,” he murmurs, “yeah.” Marcus teases some more, fingers barely touching, hips pistoning now. “Oh… _yeah_.”

“What happened to ‘I’m not remotely interested in you’, to ‘you’re boring and dull’, huh?” Marcus asks, caressing the urgent knot of heat in Esca’s belly, fingers ghosting around Esca’s cock.

“Jesus, Marcus” Esca’s eyes snap open.

“Say it. I want to hear you say it.”

“Marcus I…I think you’re the most attractive man I’ve ever seen in my life. I always…ah…I always wanted you, right from the first…right from the first time I saw you,” Esca gasps, choking slightly on the admission.

Marcus gives a wicked twist to his hips, letting go of Esca’s cock and uses one hand to wrap tight into Esca’s hair, holding his head back so he can see his eyes, his neck bared to him. He uses his other arm to knock Esca’s elbows from under him, and then traps Esca’s slender wrists, pinning them above his head, pressing him flat against the top of the desk.

“Am I being too nice now? Too _sweet_?”

Esca bites his lip, half smiles, moans, wriggles his thighs back and up towards his chest, giving Marcus better access to his hot, secret core. “Well, that does feel…pretty sweet.”

“Yeah?” Marcus thrusts as hard as he can, biting at the inside of his cheek to stop himself from coming. “What about those other guys? In the lecture hall?”

“Fuck, you know…only doing it…to make you jealous. It was always you.” Esca stills suddenly, pulling one of his hands free and cupping Marcus’ jaw. “It’s always you Marcus. You know that.”

The admission, so unexpected and heartfelt, makes Marcus stutter, his heart suddenly blossoming in his chest, his eyes suddenly wet. “Mm,” he mumbles, worried if he says anything to Esca now he might cry, and he bends his head and kisses Esca’s soft, willing lips, and then he is coming, so hard it makes him dizzy, and it is perfect, and suddenly gentle, and it is Esca.

He rests his head for a few, brief, sweet seconds on Esca’s shoulder, and then, even though he would like nothing better but to close his eyes and breathe in Esca’s clean, cool scent, to ease the pressure off his screaming thigh muscles, he thrusts his still hard cock a few more times into Esca’s now slippery warmth, using one hand to pull sharply on Esca’s cock. He lifts his head, watching Esca’s face intently as the clear skin of Esca’s chest blushes, his neck tenses and his breathing hollows out.

“Marcus,” he says, and then Marcus feels Esca’s dick pulse and jet in his hand.

Marcus breathes out, deeply, and allows his head to drop back to Esca’s shoulder. He can feel his thigh shaking with the strain. “Huh,” he says softly. “Esca, I’m going to have to… my leg….” And he eases himself out of Esca gently, before dropping to floor, forcing his leg out straight in front of him, curling the toes up towards his head, trying to calm the agony of his thigh while still feeling the sparkling tingles of pleasure shooting from the crown of his head to the tip of his softening cock. The confusion of his senses gives an extra erotic edge to the pain that isn’t altogether unpleasant.

Esca sits up on the edge of the desk and looks at him, his eyes deep and dark. “Wow,” he says, still slightly shakily. “Aren’t you a revelation?”

Marcus half smiles and shrugs. “What can I say? You’re pretty inspirational.”

Esca’s eyes wander slowly to Marcus’ ruined leg. “Are you alright? I hope I didn’t hurt you.”

“It’ll be fine,” Marcus assures him, “It just needs stretching. It, um, well, that was quite a work out.”

“I’ll say,” Esca springs off the side of the desk, and goes down on his haunches next to Marcus, smoothing a thumb over Marcus’ lips. He looks almost feral in the moonlight, naked and crouched. He gives Marcus a funny, intent look, one he hasn’t seen before. Then he kisses him, swift and chaste, his eyes open all the while, staring into Marcus’. “Marcus Aquila,” he says softly.

“So, uh, I’m heading to my Uncle’s, like, three hours ago,” Marcus says awkwardly, “If you want… Would you like to come? For Christmas?”

Esca regards him silently again, and in a rush Marcus feels all his old insecurities flooding back in, suddenly worried he sounds foolish, blunt, too needy, too eager. “Okay,” Esca says eventually. “Thanks. That would be nice. If you’re sure.”

 _Sure_. As if he would ever not be sure of his feelings for Esca. “It’s no problem, it would be a pleasure to have you,” Marcus says, watching Esca’s lips twitch at the unintended double entendre.

They dress hurriedly in the dim lecture hall, Marcus kneading at the angry muscles of his thigh, wishing he hadn’t left his cane in his office; then Esca helps him up the stairs, Marcus’ bulk pressed against him, stepping somewhat gingerly.

“Looks like neither of us can walk properly now,” he jokes.

“God, I’m sorry,” Marcus says quickly, embarrassed, concerned. “I shouldn’t have… I hope it didn’t hurt too much.”

“Marcus,” Esca pauses and turns to face him, “it’s fine.” He smiles, “You never need to apologise for fucking me like that, okay?” Then he kisses him again, his mouth still tasting of sex, and despite his almost crippling fatigue Marcus feels his cock twitch with renewed interest.

“Ok.”

After collecting Marcus’ wet clothes and cane from the office, they walk out to the car park and Marcus drives them across the quiet countryside towards his Uncle’s home.

“What did you come back to say? When you came to my office?” Marcus asks, keeping his eyes on the dark road, still unsure of Esca, of himself.

Esca doesn’t answer for a long time. “I don’t know really… I just, I didn’t want you to think that I didn’t have…feelings…for you.”

“Feelings, huh?” Marcus allows himself to glance across at Esca’s side of the car.

Esca grins mischievously and winks at Marcus. “Yeah. But mostly I just wanted to tell you how hot you looked without your shirt on.” But when he puts his hand on Marcus’ thigh, right over the scar, his fingers are gentle, gentle.

Uncle Aquila is warm and welcoming, as if there is nothing out of the ordinary about Marcus rocking up three hours late with an uninvited twenty something man in tow two nights before Christmas. He reheats some dinner for them, and regales them with tales of the latest goings-on in the village (despite having lived in England for some 19 years, he is still endlessly fascinated by the behaviours and attitudes of its residents), peppered liberally with embarrassing anecdotes from Marcus’ childhood. Esca is uncharacteristically vocal, polite and charming, listening avidly to all of his Uncle’s stories. Marcus is somewhat less chatty, so tired he can barely keep his eyes open, feeling the velvet beckon of sleep.

“Well,” his uncle announces. “You look worn out Marcus. You must have had a busy day.” At this Esca allows the tiniest touch of his little finger against the fine hairs on the back of Marcus’ wrist under the table, a small smile playing around the bow his lips. Certain parts of Marcus immediately come awake. “I’ve made your room up for you. Esca, shall I show you to the guest bedroom?” He looks at them both quizzically then, as if waiting to be contradicted, but before Marcus can even begin to consider how best to respond, Esca says, “Yes, thank you, that would be lovely,” and is gone.

  
The next morning Marcus is up early, and finds his Uncle already reading the papers over kippers. “Is Esca still asleep?” he asks, casually, pouring himself some orange juice.

Uncle Aquila looks over the tops of his reading glasses. “No, no, he was up and out of the house at the crack of dawn.”

Marcus feels a jolt of painful alarm – Esca has gone. Yesterday was just some dark, dreamy fugue, a moment out from reality, from the reality of who he is, who would want him. “Asked if he could borrow some trainers. Like I’d own a pair of trainers! You youngsters and your fitness regimes.”

“So he’s out for a run?” Marcus enquires, straining to keep his voice neutral.

Uncle Aquila flaps a hand. “I believe so. He said he’d ask you to join him, but he was worried you might have hurt your leg yesterday. Something about an ‘epic workout’ you both did.”

Marcus studies the orange juice carton hard, feeling a hot rush of blood course up his chest towards his face. And other parts. _Epic workout_. He can suddenly taste Esca in his mouth, can feel him all long and cool pressed against Marcus’ heated hands. When he does risk glancing at his uncle again as he sits at the table, he is looking at him pensively.

“You seem….” For a minute Marcus thinks he is going to say _happier_ , but he finishes “more yourself.” After another pause he adds, “better in yourself. Your old self.”

Marcus snorts. “Ha! I’m not sure that’s a good thing. I’m not sure how much I liked my old self.”

“Well, I did,” Uncle Aquila says quietly, “I liked him very much indeed.” He cocks his head, cornflower eyes enquiring. “I’m assuming this change is on account of your young man?”

Marcus hesitates. He’s never come out to his Uncle. He never came out to his father either. But he wasn’t exactly subtle about it. There were boys at high school, more boys than girls, and boys at university too, and he never hid them from his father, never offered any explanation when they would be in the large family kitchen, so empty since his mother died, at breakfast time. Perhaps he assumed that his father, so rigid and judgmental about most things, would be open to this – he was an historian specializing in the Roman Empire after all. And he was probably right. His father never said anything, never asked him anything, never made any loaded comments or pressured him about the lack of a regular girlfriend.

“He probably has something to do with it,” Marcus mumbles, feeling himself beginning to blush, _again_.

Uncle Aquila smiles broadly. “Well, good,” he says, “Good. You deserve a nice young man. You deserve to be happy, Marcus.”

They spend the day with his uncle, going for a walk across the crisp, frosty countryside, stopping off at a pub for lunch.

Esca tries to encourage him to have a pint of real ale, but Marcus refuses. “It’s disgusting. It looks and tastes like bin juice.”

“Spoken like someone raised on the piss-weak excuse for an alcoholic drink that is Budweiser,” Esca retorts.

His uncle joins in. “I’ve tried Esca, I’ve tried. But there’s no saving the boy. Maybe if we made it into a shandy?”

“Shut up, the both of you” Marcus responds good naturedly.

He loves spending time with his uncle – he’s the only family Marcus has – but it does mean he gets no time alone with Esca, cool, mysterious Esca. Marcus wishes he could hold Esca so close he could burrow into his skin, to know his heart and mind, _what are you thinking, what are you feeling_?

His uncle makes them stay up by the fire with him til 11:30, when he sets off for midnight mass. “Are you sure you don’t want to come? You used to love carols as a boy.”

“Honestly, Uncle, I’m fine,” Marcus says. “I’m actually still pretty tired.” He yawns and stretches extravagantly for emphasis. However, by the time he’s seen his uncle out the door, Esca has already gone upstairs to bed. Marcus feels a surge of disappointment so savage, it’s almost like anger. How can Esca…? How can he not want…? Marcus _wants_ so much. He sits up in bed reading for a long while, still half hoping he’s got it wrong, and Esca is going to come and join him. But nothing. When he hears his Uncle crunching up the frosty pathway at ten to one, Marcus gives up and turns off his lamp. He listens to the creak of his uncle’s footsteps on the stairs, the clanking of the ancient plumbing, then the sound of the house sighing and settling around them.

It is dark as pitch. Marcus had forgotten how dark it got in the countryside. He lies, staring blankly into the nothingness, feeling the slow sad thump of his heart, the twist of his pain. Marcus is almost asleep when he hears the door swing lightly on its hinges. His heart lurches in his chest, and he sits up with a start, the sheets pooling around his waist.

“Esca?” It’s almost a shout.

“Shhhh,” he hears footsteps padding across the floorboards, cat-light in the gloom, and then the bed depresses as Esca slides into it. “Mmmm,” Esca’s cool hands find Marcus in the blackness and he runs them appreciatively over the planes of Marcus’ chest, “been thinking about this all day.”

“Me too,” says Marcus, feeling hot delight blossom in his veins. He pulls Esca in closer, awkwardly bashing noses in the dark, then finding the rasp of his chin, the unexpected plushness of his lips. “Esca – are you wearing _pyjamas?”  
_  
“Your uncle lent them to me, okay,” Esca says defensively. “I didn’t have anything to sleep in. I don’t even have any spare boxers with me.”

“My uncle’s pyjamas, huh? That’s sexy. It’s lucky I can’t see you properly or I wouldn’t be able to control myself.”

“If it’s such a turn-off for you,” Esca says gently, and here he lets his hand find the plumpness of Marcus’ cock, already half-hard under the covers, “I can just go back to my bed. By myself.”

Marcus bites back a moan as Esca’s clever fingers twist and pull against him. “Maybe we could compromise, and you could just…take them off.”

“I don’t know. This house is old. It’s pretty cold at night.”

Marcus pulls Esca tighter, wrapping his arms around his slender waist. “I’m sure we’ll find ways to keep warm.”

Later, after the frenzied fumbling under the covers, hands on each other in the darkness, both spilling on each other’s skin, they lie together, quiet, content. Esca lets a hand trail down over Marcus’ hip, fingers finding the scar. Marcus winces, but doesn’t pull away, allowing Esca to blindly map its bays and ridges.

“What happened?” he asks after a while.

It’s not a question that Marcus likes answering. “I was in the marines,” he says eventually. “I…after all that stuff with my dad, I dropped out of college and I joined up. I thought I could, I don’t know, make a difference. Make _history._ ”

He can hear his father’s voice again, clear and deep: _joining the army -_ _it’s not a game, Marcus_.

“Anyway, I was fit, I was bright, they pushed me up the ranks quite quickly, I made sergeant within 14 months. But some of the men don’t really respect that, especially when they think you’re…from a background of privilege.” He pauses here and tries to see Esca’s face in the dark, remembering their first encounter, _I guess it’s one rule for the rich and one for everyone else_ , but the blackness is all-encompassing. “You feel like you have a lot to prove. And then after my dad… after his accident, I… It was like an obsession, I needed to prove to myself, to his memory, that I was brave, that I was someone who made things happen.”

He is silent again for a while. “I was stupid. I wanted so much to make a difference. But mostly, being in the forces, being out in Afghanistan, it’s just sitting around. It’s piss boring. Sitting around with a bunch of guys with limited conversational skills. Sitting around. Waiting. Being scared. Then bored. More waiting. Passing round the same shitty paperback copy of Dan Brown. Cleaning guns. Waiting.

“Sometimes, you know…” he cocks his head at Esca and runs his hand lightly down his stomach, half-embarrassed at the admission. “But most of the time that’s torture too. Everyone so shifty about it. Never knowing if you’re going to get a hand job or a kick in the nuts. Never being alone. Wanting. Waiting. The heat is unbearable, the flies are unbearable, the stink. The waiting.

“So when one day we got told we needed to go and evacuate some civilians, who’d got caught up in some fighting between some different rebel factions, to actually _do_ something, I was really excited - it’s like your whole body, your mind, everything, explodes violently back into life. Suddenly everything’s – go, go, action. So I go blundering in, all ooh-rah, thinking I’m GI fucking Joe, and I led my men straight into an ambush.”

He pauses again, remembering that day, the hot, white brightness of it, the vividness of the colours, the feel of the sun on the bare skin of his face. “Fortunately, I kind of…realized in time. I’m not even sure how I knew they were waiting for us. It was like I could just smell it on the air. I was… well… I wasn’t going to let any of my men die because of my mistake. I figured out where they were, up in the ruins of this half bombed wall along the side of the road, and I just ran. I don’t know how I didn’t get shot before I reached them. I guess I surprised them, just when they were waiting to surprise us. I killed four of them. The last one… my gun wasn’t working properly, Christ knows what was wrong with it, the amount of times I’d cleaned and assembled the fucking thing, so I just…I took the end of the gun, and I just beat him with it.”

Even now Marcus feels a narrowing of his throat, a twinge like nausea start in his gut, his eyes go wet. “It wasn’t… He was young. Very young. He… I try not to think about it. Anyway, he must have had some sort of grenade on him, a dirty bomb, I don’t know. But it went off. I don’t really remember much of that. A bit of the wall broke off and ended up in my leg. To be honest, it’s a miracle I didn’t get blown to bits. But at the time… It bled a lot. It bled so much I was surprised there was any blood left in me. It was hot. I remember putting my hands down to where my leg was and not being able to find any skin, anything firm, just feeling wet, and then being able to feel the bone, all hard and splintered. It was just me and the guy I’d beaten for a while in that small space, hemmed in among the rubble. He was still breathing, but only just, I could hear it gurgling through the mess where his face had been. I remember that. I thought I was going to die. Alone there, with the man I killed, breathing out our last together. And it felt right. It felt like the right sort of punishment. You reap what you sow. It felt like I lay there for hours, days, but it can only have been a minute at tops before the men in my unit were there.” He pauses again. “You can see why I’ve never felt like much of a hero.”

They lie in silence.

“Well then, you know,” Esca says quietly after a while. “You _do_ know.” And he kisses Marcus, gently, in the dark, his fingers cool against Marcus’ closed eyelids, his tongue caressing the delicate inside of Marcus’ mouth. “I can’t believe I’m lucky enough to have found someone like you. You,” he says.

“I don’t think most people would count finding someone who beat a guy to death as lucky. Someone who... who is as messed up as me, messed up and broken…”

Esca cuts him off, “Don’t. And don’t tell me that. I’ve had enough bad luck in my life to know when something good comes along.”

They kiss again, for some time, Marcus delighting in the glorious press of Esca’s smooth, supple body against his. Esca slides his hands down the muscular arch of Marcus’ back, cupping his ass, sending an exploratory finger into the crease. “Can I…?” he whispers.

“Yeah,” Marcus breathes. He can count on the fingers of one hand the amount of times someone has done this to him; he has never overly enjoyed it, finding it awkward and uncomfortable, never able to relax into the rhythm; but this is _Esca,_ and the idea of Esca inside him makes him feel breathless, tight, dizzy with want.

Esca spends a long time preparing him, patient, gentle, almost languorous, slipping all around Marcus like water, until he wants to cry out from the joy and the frustration of it. Even when he is finally inside Marcus they go slowly, maddeningly slowly, letting the pressure build up as they move together. It coils down low in Marcus’ stomach, tighter and tighter ‘til he tingles with it, almost aches with it. When Esca finally finds that sweet spot deep inside him, Marcus can’t help himself but shout, and Esca has to place his hand, hard, over Marcus’ mouth to silence him.

Marcus bites at the underside of his palm, hot and frantic, trying to look into Esca’s face but feeling his eyes close despite himself, giving way to the soaring white fall of his pleasure, like jumping out into cool air, sunlight, space.

When he wakes up he is alone in his bed, and the disappointment is crushing. There is a bulging stocking from his uncle looped over the end of the bed post though, and Marcus feels anxiety mingled with the disappointment. _When did his uncle…?_ It’s best not to think about it, Marcus concludes, and heads down for the traditional Christmas breakfast of smoked salmon and scrambled eggs with champagne.

Esca is already up, deep in conversation with his uncle at the breakfast bar, and when he sees Marcus he gives him a warm, wide, easy smile that makes Marcus feel foolish for his earlier disappointment. “Merry Christmas sleepy,” he says, and it’s all Marcus can do not to gather him up and kiss him, there, in the kitchen.

 _You_ , he thinks, _oh you_.

After breakfast Uncle Aquila leaves them to wash up and put away whilst he sorts out the presents under the Christmas tree. Esca rolls up his sleeves at the sink, and just the sight of his wrist hair, his fine-boned wrist, the golden hair furring his fine-boned wrist, the way it yellows and turns fairer all the way down his arm, becoming more precious, all part of his wonderful alchemy; and Marcus is lost, feeling his flesh rise, the ache of his body drawing itself together. When Esca reaches up to put the champagne glasses away in a high cupboard, causing his t-shirt to ride up and give Marcus a glimpse of a pale half moon of taut stomach, he feels a surge of longing so palpable salvia fills his mouth. He catches Esca round the middle, and pulls him clumsily towards him for a damp, open-mouthed kiss.

Esca pushes him off, laughing, and returns to the sink. “Your uncle!” he admonishes.

“I know, I’m sorry, it just makes me crazy being around you and not being able to touch you, knowing…what it’s like to touch you.” Esca regards him levelly from across the breakfast bar, and Marcus feels sheepish. Esca probably thinks he’s ridiculous, undignified. “Sorry,” he finishes lamely, “I know, I’m being an idiot.”

Esca walks round the breakfast bar to stand behind Marcus, silently looping one arm around Marcus’ neck and shoulders and pressing his crotch slowly and deliberately against Marcus’ ass. Marcus can feel how hard he is through his jeans, can feel the surge as Esca’s cock rubs against him.

“It makes me pretty crazy too,” Esca whispers hotly in his ear. Marcus spins round at that, and mashes Esca against him, kissing at his neck, grinding himself against Esca’s thigh. Esca gives a quiet growl of satisfaction, and when Uncle Aquila re-enters the kitchen they are rutting against each other fully-clothed like randy schoolboys, pressed up against the breakfast bar.

“Ahem,” he says pointedly, and they jump apart, Marcus blushing furiously. “I thought we might go through into the sitting room,” he says, “that is, when you’re all done in here.” And with a knowing smile, he shuffles back out of the room.

“I know this is going to be difficult,” Marcus says later, quietly, over the table after lunch. “Me and you, I mean. If there ¬ _is_ a me and you. I don’t want to…”

“There’s a me and you,” Esca cuts him off softly. “But you’re right, it is difficult.”

“I know. If you think it’s going to be too hard, I understand.”

Esca reaches for his hand under the table, takes it in his and gives it a long, cool squeeze, fluting his fingers along the length of Marcus’.

“We’ll work something out,” he says, and smiles.

  
 **Epilogue  
**  
They work something out.

After the Easter term Marcus gets a year long teaching sabbatical, at Columbia of all places, as a visiting Professor. They figure this way by the time he’s back in the UK Esca will have almost graduated, and then they can be together, properly, officially. It’s easier than having to tell the Dean, having to face two years of whispers and accusations.

It’s strange being back at Columbia. Everything is the same, everything is different. _Plus ca change_. His students seem to enjoy his classes.

No one mentions his father, until one day Professor Guern, one of the old guard, pulls him to one side in the corridor. “Marcus,” he says, earnestly, holding onto Marcus’ sleeve. “Good to have you here. I just wanted you to know, that we all miss your father. Very much. He was a good man, you know, despite what…happened. A fine academic, and a great teacher. The students all respected him very much, as did we. I see a lot of him in you, you know.”

“Thanks,” Marcus mumbles, wanting to say more, but already feeling the tight swell of emotion closing around his throat.

He moves back into his old family home, empty now for almost 11 years, pulling the dust sheets away, running his fingers along the edges of the framed photographs in the kitchen, his mother’s dark eyes, wide smile, his father, laughing. Funny how he can never remember his father laughing. And pictures of Marcus too, younger, freer, at ease. That Marcus doesn’t seem quite so distant from him anymore.

He misses Esca terribly of course. And Cottia, although she forces him to familiarize himself with the wonders of Skype. He thinks of Esca a lot, when he is teaching, when he is at the gym, when he is crossing the road, when he is trying to sleep. Especially then. He chews his way through 10 years worth of diligently saved air miles flying either one of them back and forth across the ocean every two months.

It’s difficult though. He wants to be with Esca all the time. He worries, too. Esca’s younger than him, has his whole life in front of him. And he thinks, sometimes, some dark times, of Liathan, of his lackadaisical charm and easy grace. Of the other men Esca spends his days with. Maybe his nights too. He steels himself, and brings it up on the phone one day.

“I just wanted to say, that if you want to… you know, _date_ , then that’s fine, I completely understand. I mean, we never said we were…exclusive, and I know we’re far away from each other, and it’s difficult, so, you know, that’s fine with me. If you want to. I don’t want to…hold you back.”

“Marcus, I swear to God, if you start being all sad and noble about this again, I’m going to get on the first plane to the States and come and find you and smack you one,” Esca retorts, his voice as clear as if he was standing next to Marcus, and not almost 4,000 miles away. “I don’t want to be with anyone else, okay? I don’t want to be with anyone else; firstly because, no matter what you say about it being alright I’d feel shitty about it; secondly, because after you, fucking anyone else would be such a disappointment I’d probably start to cry; and thirdly because…well…I’m yours. I’m just for you.”

Marcus has to clear his throat. “Really?” he asks in a small voice.

“Marcus!” Esca sounds exasperated. “I’d do anything for you, Marcus. I’d lie at your feet.”

Marcus falls silent, feeling his heart get so full of light it feels like it might burst in his chest.

“This is the part where you’re meant to say something reassuring back,” Esca says after a while. “I know you’re going for the whole brooding silent thing, which is sexy, believe me, but it would be nice to have a bit of earnest Marcus right now. Especially since _you_ were the one who just suggested we might want to see other people.”

“I love you,” Marcus replies simply.

Esca laughs, “Okay, that’ll do.”

So they work it out, with a lot of time spent waiting in airports, a lot of snatched weekends of almost breathless, terrifying excitement at being together, and lots of phone sex, which Marcus finds he has an unexpected flare for. He finds a lot of unexpected things out about himself now he is with Esca. An unexpected ability to let someone else into his heart. An unexpected capacity to be happy. To be whole. To hope. To look to the future once again, instead of always back at the past.

  
 **The End**


End file.
